If the Tories suffer incredible losses in the forthcoming local government elections and decide to part ways with Kemi Badenoch as a result, Nigeria should make her an FDI ambassador

Ayo Akinfe

[1] We talk a lot about diasporans having an impact on Africa the way say the Jewish lobby does on Israel and the way the Cuban-American community influences Washington. However, so far, Africa is lagging way behind everyone else

[2] Even when the former US deputy secretary of the treasury Wale Adeyemo was a Nigerian, we did not see him push corporate America to make Nigeria one of their favourite investment destinations

[3] In 2019, for instance, US foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide totalled $5.96trn. I would settle for just $10bn of that in Nigeria

[4] Every industrialised nation worldwide takes FDI very seriously because it opens up new markets for their goods, creates ancillary employment back home and the returns on investment are generally high

[5] I have just been looking at the US FDI figures pre-pandemic for 2019 and here are the top 10 - Netherlands $860bn, UK $851bn, Luxembourg $766bn, Canada $402bn, Ireland $354bn, Singapore $287bn, Bermuda $262bn, Switzerland $228bn, Australia $162bn, Germany $148bn

[6] One striking feature is that the investments in places like Luxembourg, Singapore, Bermuda and Switzerland are in financial services. Now, Nigerian interest rates are very high, so we are actually a very sound location for pension and investment funds to lodge their cash

[7] If you look at US investment in China, in 2019 it was $116bn and for Mexico it was $100bn. For Brazil it was $81bn, while for India it was $45bn. In all these nations, the investment was mainly in manufacturing and heavy industry. Given the chronic lack of manufacturing capacity in Nigeria today, we desperately need FDI in heavy industry. If we can attract the kind of US investment we are seeing in Brazil, Mexico and India, we will be home and dry

[8] If we are not attracting investment from the US, there is no excuse for our former colonial master the UK. They knew where Nigeria was when they wanted slaves, palm oil, groundnuts, rubber, etc but alas, all of a sudden they have forgotten about their beloved Slave Coast put together by George Goldie and Frederick Lugard

[9] If Kemi gets ditched by the Tories, she can at least cover herself in glory and debunk the Uncle Tom tag by coming up with a plan to attract FDI into Nigeria

[10] As things stand, Nigeria needs FDI or we die. Without it, we will have more terrorism, more out is school children, my Almajiris, more poverty, more dilapidated infrastructure, more corruption, etc. When US yearly investment in India alone is about twice the size of Nigeria’s annual budget, it is delusional to think we can go anywhere without FDI.

ayoakinfe@gmail.com