Taraba State government has ordered the closure of all markets, shops and worship centres in the state to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The shutdown is expected to commence from Thursday, April 2. At a press briefing, the Deputy Governor, Haruna Manu, warned that the measure taken should not be allowed to cause panic buying, hoarding or hike in prices of goods and services.

Manu explained that essential services like pharmacies, food stores and petrol service stations were exempted from the order.

He said the state government will study the implications of its directive by giving periodic updates on the situation so that it does not impact negatively on the people.

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Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has appealed to law enforcement agencies across the country to allow free movement of petroleum products during the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The group, in a statement, said the exemption granted by President Muhammadu Buhari to certain categories of essential workers covers the operations of petroleum products tanker drivers. The group also advised motorists not to engage in panic buying, noting that NNPC holds over 2.6 billion litres of petrol which is enough to last through the period of the lockdown and beyond.

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The Federal Government has reduced the price of petrol from 125 naira per litre to 123 naira, 50 kobo per litre. This is a 1 naira 50 kobo reduction on every litre of petrol purchased nationwide.

The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency announced the new price after a whole day meeting with stakeholders in the oil and gas sector in Abuja.

Executive Secretary of PPPRA, Abdulkadir Saidu, said the guiding price takes effect on 1st April 2020, and shall apply at all retail outlets nationwide for the month of April 2020. He said the PPPRA and other relevant regulatory agencies shall continue to monitor compliance to extant regulations for a sustainable downstream petroleum sector.

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The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed 12 new cases of COVID-19, raising the total number of cases to 151. The agency says nine of the new cases were recorded in Osun State, two in Edo State and one in Ekiti State.

The agency says nine people have recovered from the virus and have been discharged while two deaths have been recorded in the country.

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The videoconferencing app, Zoom, has come under a fresh high-level scrutiny as its popularity soars during the coronavirus pandemic. New York's attorney general has written to the firm raising concerns over its ability to cope with the rise in users. The letter from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James asked Zoom whether it had reviewed its security measures since its popularity surged. It also pointed out that in the past the app had been slow to address issues. Zoom has assured that it takes its users' privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously.

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Stock markets around the world suffered historic losses in the first three months of the year amid a massive sell-off tied to the coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and London's FTSE 100 saw their biggest quarterly drops since 1987. The Dow plunged 23 percent while the Footsie fell 25 percent.

The S&P 500 lost 20 percent during the quarter, its worst since 2008.

The drops come as authorities order a halt to most activity in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Economists have warned the hit to the global economy is likely to be worse than the 2008 financial crisis, with forecasters for IHS Markit, for example, predicting growth will shrink 2.8% this year, compared to a 1.7 percent drop in 2009.

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Britain’s banking sector has scrapped billions of dollars in shareholder dividends and share buybacks after the Bank of England requested the move to boost liquidity and help cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

The British central bank, in a statement, said its Prudential Regulation Authority division had asked lenders to stop the payments until the end of the year.

It also said it expects them not to pay any cash bonuses to top staff.

In response, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Standard Chartered all stated that they will scrap dividends and not pursue buybacks.

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The Paris Club of creditor nations has agreed to restructure Somalia’s debt, including immediately canceling 1.4 billion dollars owed by the country.

The decision cancels 67% of the debts owed to Paris Club creditors by Somalia. It came after more than nine hours of discussions by videoconference. Somali Finance Minister, Abdirahman Beileh, called the decision a big step forward for his country.

Belleh said the Somali government would hold separate bilateral discussions with the creditors to finalize the process. He said his government would continue the economic reforms it had undertaken over the past eight years to enable the debt relief.

Somalia is the 37th country to qualify for debt relief under the HIPC process.

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Zambia's finance minister, Chileshe Kandeta, says the country is looking for financial advisors to help ensure the sustainability of its debt and manage any loans maturing from next year and beyond.

The minister told Reuters that the government had issued a request for proposals to provide advisory services on liability management and debt. Kandeta said the request for proposals was issued as part of Zambia’s asset liability management exercise, including project re-scoping and refinancing of Zambia’s Eurobonds.

He said the government had no intention of unilaterally restructuring its debt without consulting creditors and would respect agreements.

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The dollar exchanged for N412 on Monday at the Bureau De Change segment of the market.

This followed a temporary suspension of sale of forex to the Bureau De Change operators in the industry by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria had made a request to the CBN to grant it market holidays, given the ongoing challenges faced in the local and global economies due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The CBN granted the BDCs two weeks market holiday as requested.

According to the BDCs, there had been drastic decline in demand for forex due to the impact of the COVID-19 on the economy, as businesses were down and many people were not traveling out of the country.

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