By Abbati Bako,psc,bsis
It was just last week His Excellency President Ahmed Bola Tinubu visited Qatar with a view to woo investors to come to Nigeria and make a tremendous amount of investments; being the world most black populous country in the world and GDP of not less than $511b according to World Bank/IMF 2023 reports and followed by South Africa and Egypt. Nigeria is a beautiful country for investments.
Investors are darling in any country of the world because Foreign Direct Investments (FDR) is the backbone of global economies. Economy is the life wire of human existence. Even the economically advanced countries of the world welcome investors to their countries for economic prosperity, employment and more taxes for the government of that country. Investments are a booster for economic development in any country of the world.
Globalization Policy created economic opportunities for every nation of the world. But no investor will come to any country of the world without regular electricity energy, clean water, security, roads and healthy citizens to do those jobs for the investor.
Research indicates that investors prepare to go to Singapore (a country with about 10 Million population) and invest than to come to Nigeria and other African nations. The ratio between Singapore and other African nations is 10% and 90% in favor of Singapore according to Professor Tatah Mentan. In early 2010 the whole European investments in Africa was around $60b compared to Chinese that invested about $300b in Africa.
Nigeria and global economic investors—
This writing understands that International Economic Investors would have loved to invest in Nigeria simply because the country has about 2 and a half percent of the global population. Huge population is very important to any investor.
On the other hand, a part of the population most investors will consider the issue of economic purchasing power of the citizens of that country. Also, security, and stability, growth of the economic system and predictability of the future of democratic governance in that country. Incorruptible nature of the political appointees and civil servants. These are fundamental!.
Factually, if President Ahmed Bola Tinubu wanted to see investors flooding into Nigeria for investments; corruption must be killed.The issue of “ease of doing business” in Nigeria is not enough to woo investors. Secondly, security challenges must be tackled ASAP. Electricity energy (Brazil has about 114,000MGW) must be boosted at least to be not less than 30,000MGW. Thirdly, the road network is an imperative part of attracting investors; especially railroads.
Conclusively, if the government of the “Renewed Hope for Nigeria” can do all that, investors will come to Nigeria . China is an excellent example in the way they attracted investors from around the world. Investors will get free land, some years of tax waiver and less than 5% interest rates in the banking system especially if the investor will offer jobs for not less than 100 Chinese citizens. So, Nigeria must look critically at its policy on investments in the country. Foreign Direct Investments (FDR) is an imperative part of economic stability.
Abbati Bako,psc,bsis,Kent-alumni and Researcher in International Politics and PhD,.scholar on Globalization Policy @Skyline University Kano Nigeria—–
+2349077889959 text only
