Were Nigeria a nation of thinking leaders we would have initiated plans to attract the billions Russian oligarchs invested in the West that has now been frozen 

Ayo Akinfe 

[1] When it became clear war was going to break out in The Ukraine, The West moved decisively to seize the assets of all the members of the Russian oligarchy that was invested in their countries 

[2] Obviously? the most high profile of all this was Roman Abramovic’s ownership of Chelsea Football Club 

[3] Do you know that recently, the UK alone has frozen assets belonging to two Russian oligarchs worth up to £10bn or $13bn? Eugene Tenenbaum and David Davidovich are both close associates of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich

[4] London, has long served as a hub for Russia's post-Soviet billionaire class and several landmark properties in the city's most fashionable areas serve as second homes to Russian oligarchs. However the war in Ukraine and the international response to it is threatening the financial security that British pounds and property riches once represented to Russia's wealthiest and best-connected oligarchs

[5] Among other things, relatively tiny tax havens like Jersey and the Cayman Islands have announced the freezing of tens of billions of dollars in assets held in their banks by Russian oligarchs who have come under sanction

[6] Abramovich alone is worth £10.4bn ($12.5bn), according to Forbes. However, he cannot sell any of his UK assets without a special licence that can only be granted by ministers and the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. Any cash he holds in the UK are now frozen in accounts if he has not been able to transfer funds abroad, while his shares on the London Stock Exchange cannot be sold and will pay no dividends

[7] Oil billionaire Oleg Deripaska, once Russia's richest man and named as one of President Putin's most loyal oligarchs with a net worth of between £2bn and £3.2bn, once famously entertained Blairite spin doctor Lord Mandelson on his yacht. He is known for close links with the British political establishment and is understood to own a £50m crashpad property on Belgrave Square in London

[8] Other Russian billionaires who assets have been frozen in the UK include Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Russian oil company Rosneft; Andrey Kostin, chairman of VTB bank; Alexei Miller, the chief executive of energy giant Gazprom; Nikolai Tokarev, the president of Russian state-owned pipeline company Transneft and Dmitri Lebedev, the chairman of the board of directors at Bank Rossiya 

[9] Nigeria should be screaming out for all this investment. Just imagine if the $20bn or so of Abramovic’s frozen capital was invested in say the Nigerian railways, in hydro-electric power plants, in electric car manufacturing factories or in a solar panel manufacturing facility 

[10] I just hope our next president puts together a team of economic planners who can go after opportunities like this. The last person to do this was Yakubu Gowon with his National Economic Council made up of the likes of Obafemi Awolowo, Aminu Kano, Joseph Tarka, Anthony Enahoro, etc