Nigeria’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu last week confirmed the first case of the Ebola virus spreading beyond the country’s financial capital Lagos to oil hub Port Harcourt, bringing the total number of recorded cases in Nigeria to 15.
Natznet Tesfay, head of sub-Saharan Africa Analysis, IHS Country Risk, writes that, if the virus continues to spread, business operations and trade from Nigeria will face an increasing risk of disruption from responsive measures, including border closures, flight restrictions, cargo screenings, and evacuation of expatriate staff as seen in the three worst affected countries in West Africa.
With regard to the hydrocarbon sector, which contributes 98%of Nigeria’s export revenues, one foreign operator has already advised against non-essential travel to Nigeria, he says.
Reduced economic activity is only likely to compound pressure on government expenditure, which is heavily focused on defence, given the expanding Boko Haram terrorist threat in the north, and increasingly more on the highly contentious general elections slated for February 2015. The health emergency will probably result in the diversion of even more government funds from educational, agricultural, and infrastructure projects.