Is there anybody in the Nigerian foreign ministry burning the midnight oil looking for foreign direct investment opportunities from all this upheaval in London 

Ayo Akinfe

[1] As the UK ponders over what kind of future she is going to have in the 22nd century, it is unfortunate that African nations are fast asleep and are not making the most of it for their own good. All this brouhaha started from the Brexit madness. Britain pressed the self-destruct button there big time 

[2] Many Britons wanted to leave the European Union (EU) because they thought that by doing so they will return to the glorious Rule Britannia era when their country ruled the oceans and colonised two thirds of the world. However, it is not a crime to be delusional

[3] Having left the EU, the UK now has a trade void to fill. For instance, most of Europe’s cocoa is stored in Amsterdam, so to get supplies devoid of high tariffs, the UK needs suppliers like Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast

[4] Likewise, companies such as GlaxoSmithKline need to look for markets in Lagos to sell their pharmaceuticals as EU duty rates will make selling on the continent unprofitable. Our government should insist, however, that there can only be deals with these firms on the condition that all of these companies open plants in Nigeria with the employment of 1,000 the very bare minimum allowed

[5] As companies like Nissan and Toyota shut down their British plants and move to Europe for access to the common market, Nigeria should be wooing these firms to come and set up shop in Nigeria. I actually think Babajide Sanwoolu should be leading the charge. He should dedicate his new Lekki Industrial Estate to the Brexit fallout. At the moment, 95% of all foreign direct investment in Nigeria goes to Lagos, so Governor Sanwoolu has to take charge of the situation

[6] In his negotiations with the British, Governor Sanwoolu should remind them that they never paid Nigeria reparations for slavery, colonial conquest or the large number of her service men and women who died fighting for the British Empire in the two world wars. In the US for instance, it was estimated that the most economically sound estimate of reparations to former slaves should be between $5.9trn and $14.2trn. This was never paid but in our case, the British never even conceded they owed us anything. I think it is time to put this matter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak 

[7] Given that Britain wants to relive its glorious past, I think we should remind them of their ugly sins gone by as well. They were the prime movers behind the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade for which about 20m Africans were plucked from their homeland. Is it not ironic that a nation that built itself up moving millions of people from one part of the world to another suddenly hates immigration?

[8] I have long argued that the World Economic Forum (Wef) should impose foreign direct investment targets on industrialised nations if it is genuine about helping Africa grow. Unless Wef can get African economies to grow by double digit figures, all this noise about assisting the continent is patronising hot air. We need Africa’s large economies like Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and DR Congo to witness 10% year-on-year annual GDP growth rates over the next decade. Anything short of this is just big big grammar

[9] As is always the case, Africans are silent when the rest of the world is seizing opportunities that are there for the taking. After World War Two, countries like the US, Argentina, Australia and Brazil snapped up some of the finest German brains. Some even pardoned ex-Nazis because of what they brought to the table. Nigeria should be hovering around the UK like a vulture now, ready to feed on any carcass. Sadly, we are once again fast asleep

[10] Were we an alert nation, when Gadaffi’s regime fell, we would have granted citizenship to all those engineers who built irrigation works in the Sahara Desert and got them to construct hydroelectric power plants, water works and irrigation dams across Nigeria. Likewise, we should have snapped up some of Jordan’s port exports when their troubles started to help us fix Apapa and build others along the coast. Do you know that Jordan’s port of Aqaba was ranked as being the Best Container Terminal in the Middle East by Lloyd's List? Compare it with our embarrassing nonsense at Apapa.  We have an annual infrastructural deficit of $100bn and simply need to find a way to fund it!