With President Trump clearly not going to champion the cause of increased US foreign direct investment in Nigeria, I think President Tinubu should switch is attention to the National Black Caucus

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Figures do not lie. If you want to understand Nigeria's problems, just look at the numbers. We have an annual infrastructural deficit of $100bn and an annual budget of about $30bn. Simply put, the Nigerian government needs to find $75bn worth of investment every year

[2] We generate about $25bn from crude oil sales and the diaspora sends home about another $25bn. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is less than $5bn and revenue from other sources is probably about that figure too. Altogether, Nigeria’s total GDP adds up to just $400bn, of which less than $30bn is available to the government to spend. We are spending less than a third of what the doctor ordered

[3] Even when you look at the Nigerian budget of $30bn, some 70% of it goes on recurrent costs like salaries, maintenance, the cost of government and the civil service. I find this weird as our civil service only has about 2.2m people working in it. How can 2.2m people account for 70% of your budget when you have a total population of some 200m?

[4] Even if we corrected this anomaly and say $20bn is spent on capital projects, we still have a massive shortfall. President Tinubu needs to do something drastic to attract capital into the Nigerian economy and I am proposing he targets the US Congressional Black Caucus. Tell them you need $75bn worth on investment a year and ask that they get African-Americans to help raise this capital

[5] In 1977, the US Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was involved in the founding of TransAfrica, an education and advocacy affiliate that was formed to act as a resource on information on the African continent and its diaspora. Nigeria has never leveraged on this or staked any claim to assistance from the CBC. Our case is actually very easy to make. We are the world’s largest black nation, the pride of the negro and we thus should be the beacon and standard bearer for every negroid person worldwide. It is in the interest of black America to have a prosperous and thriving Nigeria

[6] Do you know that the CBC is sometimes invited to the White House to meet with the president. It requests such a meeting at the beginning of each Congress. Now, has the CBC ever been invited to Aso Rock to be told the dilemma of the Nigerian economy? I am sure they would be happy to hear out a Nigerian President

[7] It is estimated that if black America were a standalone country, it would be the 15th wealthiest nation in the world with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of about $23,000 compared with Nigeria’s figure of about $2,000. As you can see, black America is a potential source of FDI but alas, the Nigerian government needs to come up with ways to protect such investors and guarantee they get encouraging returns

[8] Those of you who are economists know that money follows money. If 2,000 black US investors make returns of 10% from Nigeria in 2025, you can be guaranteed that by 2030, there will be 5,000 US investors in the country. You just need to see the way every man and his dog have rushed to China to invest there

[9] Maybe we should start with wooing the big black-owned business in the US. Let us begin with companies like Millennium Steel Service of Indiana that has an annual turnover of about $250bn, IT behemoth World Wide Technology, that has more than $10bn in annual revenue and over 5,000 employees and restaurant chain Manna that turns over $875m

[10] Given that the World Jewish Congress fights tooth and nail to attract investment into Israel, I think we should try and push the CBC to do likewise in Nigeria. At the moment, nobody is really fighting Nigeria’s corner in the global economy. It we want to attract $75bn a year, someone has to!

ayoakinfe@gmail.com