Want to lose money in one of Africa’s biggest markets? Put it to work in Nigeria.

Despite sitting on nearly 40 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and over $48 billion worth of investment opportunities in the oil and gas sector, Africa’s largest economy is mired in problems with big corporate investors as president Muhammadu Buhari readies his second-term after a swearing-in ceremony scheduled for May 29.

Nigeria’s stock index is down 0.4% year-to-date while emerging markets are up 2.3% and the MSCI Frontier Markets 100 is up 10.2%.

As one of the better known, investable African equity markets, anyone who tried their luck with the Global X Nigeria (NGE) exchange-traded fund is down 27.7% over the last 12 months. In five years, the Nigeria ETF has blown up, now down over 74.5%. Frontier and emerging indexes are better than Nigeria. It’s also worse than South Africa, Africa’s largest stock market, and Egypt, Africa’s second largest.

In terms of foreign direct investment, back in 2013 inflows totaled $5.6 billion, most of it in the telecom and energy sectors. Last year, Nigeria’s FDI flattened to $2 billion. Equity investment between 2013 and 2018 has fallen from around $2.9 billion in 2013 to just $139 million in 2018. In the last quarter of 2018, there was the first net pullout of equity capital since records began under the current accounting methodology in 2008, according to data compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).


Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy in terms of nominal GDP. South Africa comes in second, even though its GDP per capita is roughly five times that of Nigeria.

It’s Nigeria’s abundant commodity resources that make it so big. But it’s Nigeria’s government that keeps it from getting bigger, and richer.

“Nigeria has never been a particularly business-friendly place,” says David Bruckmeier, a sub-Saharan business intelligence analyst at London-based political risk firm AKE Group. “Outright hostile action against major foreign investors is rare, but bureaucracy, pervasive corruption, an unfavorable tax system and disputes with investors hurt investment,” he says.

Nigeria’s GDP contracted 13.8% in the first quarter, wiping out last year’s economic gains.

The only country to do that of late is Venezuela. And like Venezuela, Nigeria has also dealt with blackouts in the power grid—six of them this year.

“Electricity price controls are a big problem,” says Benedict Craven, a Nigeria analyst for the EIU. “The private sector is given little incentive to invest.”

According to USAID, the main U.S. government international aid organization, Nigeria has the potential to generate over 12,000 megawatts of electricity daily. On most days, it generates around 4,000 megawatts.

A March 25 documentary by the BBC, Africa Eye, said half of Nigeria’s population has no access to electricity and those that do face daily power cuts that can last for hours.

This is the kind of stuff that happens in Venezuela, a country facing U.S. sanctions, three years of economic depression and a government with dwindling support. Unlike Venezuela, Nigeria is the eighth-largest recipient of international aid. And the second largest in Africa.

Nigeria has Africa’s largest gas reserves, some 190 trillion cubic feet. Yet for all of this great oil and gas wealth, the country’s electrical grid is a charade.

“Perhaps most worryingly of all, the damage being done by a range of investor disputes where basic property and contractual rights are being violated seems to be on the increase,” says Shanker Singham, CEO of The Competere Group, a legal and trade advisory firm in London. “The erosion of Nigeria’s commitment to the rule of law is highly worrying, both from a political and an economic perspective,” Singham says.

The most notable disputes are with South Africa telecom MTN Group, an energy project with Process & Industrial Development (P&ID), and a hydroelectric contract between Sunrise Power and Chinese investors.

In the P&ID case, a London court in January 2017 said Nigeria owed the company $6.6 billion plus interest, a significant percentage of Nigeria’s $44 billion of foreign currency reserves.

Both P&ID and Sunrise have been a thorn in Nigeria’s side, with Nigeria’s government on one side saying they were duped by P&ID as far back as 2012, and courts ruling against their defense on the other. So far, these two disputes alone have easily led to more than $11 billion in international legal awards against the Buhari government.

As for the P&ID saga, the company’s main complaint relates to the government’s failure to complete a pipeline and other critical infrastructure. The project would have generated annually up to 2,000 megawatts of electricity for residential and commercial use. The company initiated arbitration proceedings in 2012, the standard legal set up for international investor disputes.

“Whether its calculations regarding its supposed investments and foregone profits are plausible is a different matter—but the government never made any effort to challenge them anyway. Nor is it surprising that Nigeria failed to show up to court hearings in the case,” says AKE Group’s Bruckmeier. “This is exemplary of the unprofessional and nonchalant attitude Nigeria often displays in such matters.”

P&ID is in limbo.

“We are well aware of the government’s efforts to characterize P&ID, and its founders, as frauds,” Brendan Cahill, the company’s founder, told Nigerian daily This Day Live on May 15 in a Q&A published on its website.

“The arbitrators in London spent five years carefully reviewing the written agreement and all the facts surrounding the deal, and in the end, they unanimously concluded that Nigeria was to blame for the deal’s collapse and had to pay damages to P&ID,” he says. “Not once during those five years did Nigeria present the courts with any evidence that there had been some kind of fraud—because there wasn’t one.”

That battle continues in the courts.

Then there is Sunrise Power.

Sunrise recently brought Nigeria and its Chinese partners before the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Nigeria faces another $2.3 billion fine in arbitration over breach of contract. Sunrise was behind the Mambilla hydroelectric dam project. It would have been Nigeria's biggest hydropower plant, capable of generating 3,050 megawatts of power.

There have been no new developments in the arbitration case as of May 20.

Nigeria’s energy woes are costing it a fortune. It is also making some bond analysts nervous, judging by an article in the Financial Times recently saying Nigeria was facing “a looming external debt crisis.” Its external debt increased $12 billion in three years, going from $10 billion to $22 billion between 2015 and 2018.

“Their debt service eats up 60% of their government revenue and is rising according to the IMF,” says Andrew Roche, managing partner at Finexem in Paris. “If they do not raise revenue, and if they can’t continue borrowing for whatever reason, then we are looking at a potential default or at least a period of dried up financing for Nigeria.”

The economy is expected to grow at just 2% this year, according to Fitch. They have Nigeria’s credit outlook as stable. Its bonds are rated B+, a low-tier speculative grade credit.

Nigeria’s general government debt is expected to rise to 292% of revenue, well above the historical B-rated credit, thanks in part to the government’s lack of progress on raising government revenue. Debt-to-GDP is below 30%. But interest payments on the debt owed to bondholders—which includes local banks—is estimated to be around 20% of general government revenue, more than twice that of average B-rated countries.

“Nigeria’s markets are broken, but not in the sense that they don’t work,” says Jan Dehn, head of research for the Ashmore Group, an emerging and frontier market investment firm with holdings in Nigerian stocks and dollar-denominated debt. “Opportunities rise, get exploited, and then they end,” he says, noting that Nigeria was kicked out of the Barclays global bond index due to capital controls in 2015. Much of Wall Street’s institutional client base left.

“I’ve had positive experiences with officials at the central bank and in the banks,” Dehn says. “But the quality of the (federal) government varies.”

Buhari was reelected in February. Investors hope he can signal a new direction for economic policy in the months ahead.

With regards to Nigeria’s investor disputes with the two energy projects, Singham estimates that the P&ID dispute can cost Nigeria nearly 40% of their foreign reserves, calling it “a significant threat to investor confidence” if not settled. Nigeria has yet to pay the settlement.

“P&ID is a bigger deal than MMT and Sunrise,” he says in a phone interview from London. “If I was the Nigerian government trying to signal that we were back in business, I would do something about that case first,” he says.

Global capital moves quickly. These little signals can be a powerful mover in a country that most investors believe is heading in the wrong direction. On the other hand, there is a consensus that Nigeria can transform itself pretty quickly.

“Is there the political will in a new Buhari government? It might just be more of the same,” says Singham. “Change is not always about one leader. When you want to get a country to improve, you need to give oxygen to the reform-minded people in the country. I think we at least have something we can work with Buhari.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/28/nigeria-has-become-africas-money-losing-machine/#54b2dc5477ac

When time to sell reach make then sell am give canada. Awo oloshi

Time for the world to end the world biggest ponzi scheme

When I see Nigerians fight those (Biafrans) who want away from Nigeria, without saving their beloved nation, I laugh hard.

This is how they suck every living cell out of developing/emerging economy.

Get foreign judgments that wipe out the foreign reserve.

Servicing loans, debts, interest and penalties.

Oxford, London School of Economics and Harvard train economists will soon flood here telling Nigeria to pay and settle business dispute in favor of the suckers.

When OBJ paid off Paris Club odious loans, it was good for the Country. Nigeria was asked to borrow by the same advocate that paid of the loan claiming loan had cheap interest rate and good for credit rating.

Prof. Soludo had to put her in her place when she started believing her false assumptions. If OBJ and Jonathan knew better, she could not have been right in both cases - pay off or borrow again.

Sometimes you have to wonder who loves this Country except those poor men and women toiling day and night to trade in needed goods and materials, sell and buy while fat cats bundle their sweat equity out through forex.

googi:
This is how they suck every living cell out of developing/emerging economy.

Get foreign judgments that wipe out the foreign reserve.

Servicing loans, debts, interest and penalties.

Oxford, London School of Economics and Harvard train economists will soon flood here telling Nigeria to pay and settle business dispute in favor of the suckers.

When OBJ paid off Paris Club odious loans, it was good for the Country. Nigeria was asked to borrow by the same advocate that paid of the loan claiming loan had cheap interest rate and good for credit rating.

Prof. Soludo had to put her in her place when she started believing her false assumptions. If OBJ and Jonathan knew better, she could not have been right in both cases - pay off or borrow again.

Sometimes you have to wonder who loves this Country except those poor men and women toiling day and night to trade in needed goods and materials, sell and buy while fat cats bundle their sweat equity out through forex.

but during gej's time they were saying the truth right? you people speak from both sides of the mouth.

This article represent the story of our life as a country. Sadly those who have held this country hostage won't allow PMB into the real and full picture, the present economic team has told lies to itself enough and should give way for a more pragmatic and reform focused group to try again.
Certainly we can not continue like this

Lifestone:
This article represent the story of our life as a country. Sadly those who have held this country hostage won't allow PMB into the real and full picture, the present economic team has told lies to itself enough and should give way for a more pragmatic and reform focused group to try again.
Certainly we can not continue like this

I beg to differ on PMB being held hostage...


the man is who he is... a man is does not have the basic grasp of what purposeful & progressive leadership is all about.

he has knowingly surrounded himself with people who share the same primitive socioeconomic reasoning with himself...

googi:
This is how they suck every living cell out of developing/emerging economy.

Get foreign judgments that wipe out the foreign reserve.

Servicing loans, debts, interest and penalties.

Oxford, London School of Economics and Harvard train economists will soon flood here telling Nigeria to pay and settle business dispute in favor of the suckers.

When OBJ paid off Paris Club odious loans, it was good for the Country. Nigeria was asked to borrow by the same advocate that paid of the loan claiming loan had cheap interest rate and good for credit rating.

Prof. Soludo had to put her in her place when she started believing her false assumptions. If OBJ and Jonathan knew better, she could not have been right in both cases - pay off or borrow again.

Sometimes you have to wonder who loves this Country except those poor men and women toiling day and night to trade in needed goods and materials, sell and buy while fat cats bundle their sweat equity out through forex.

Sincerely I couldn't get your point of view. Are you justifying the present crops of those managing our economy?

It shall not be well with APC members

Eya

Their TRAIN will be carrying them around and generate IGR abi?

There is no need for any other thiing. As long as the train is carrying them everywhere.

There's also rice aplenty in Kano.

googi:
This is how they suck every living cell out of developing/emerging economy.

Get foreign judgments that wipe out the foreign reserve.

Servicing loans, debts, interest and penalties.

Oxford, London School of Economics and Harvard train economists will soon flood here telling Nigeria to pay and settle business dispute in favor of the suckers.

When OBJ paid off Paris Club odious loans, it was good for the Country. Nigeria was asked to borrow by the same advocate that paid of the loan claiming loan had cheap interest rate and good for credit rating.

Prof. Soludo had to put her in her place when she started believing her false assumptions. If OBJ and Jonathan knew better, she could not have been right in both cases - pay off or borrow again.

Sometimes you have to wonder who loves this Country except those poor men and women toiling day and night to trade in needed goods and materials, sell and buy while fat cats bundle their sweat equity out through forex.

Take your pathetic low IQ out of here

ponziponzi:
Want to lose money in one of Africa’s biggest markets? Put it to work in Nigeria.

Despite sitting on nearly 40 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and over $48 billion worth of investment opportunities in the oil and gas sector, Africa’s largest economy is mired in problems with big corporate investors as president Muhammadu Buhari readies his second-term after a swearing-in ceremony scheduled for May 29.

Nigeria’s stock index is down 0.4% year-to-date while emerging markets are up 2.3% and the MSCI Frontier Markets 100 is up 10.2%.

As one of the better known, investable African equity markets, anyone who tried their luck with the Global X Nigeria (NGE) exchange-traded fund is down 27.7% over the last 12 months. In five years, the Nigeria ETF has blown up, now down over 74.5%. Frontier and emerging indexes are better than Nigeria. It’s also worse than South Africa, Africa’s largest stock market, and Egypt, Africa’s second largest.

In terms of foreign direct investment, back in 2013 inflows totaled $5.6 billion, most of it in the telecom and energy sectors. Last year, Nigeria’s FDI flattened to $2 billion. Equity investment between 2013 and 2018 has fallen from around $2.9 billion in 2013 to just $139 million in 2018. In the last quarter of 2018, there was the first net pullout of equity capital since records began under the current accounting methodology in 2008, according to data compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).


Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy in terms of nominal GDP. South Africa comes in second, even though its GDP per capita is roughly five times that of Nigeria.

It’s Nigeria’s abundant commodity resources that make it so big. But it’s Nigeria’s government that keeps it from getting bigger, and richer.

“Nigeria has never been a particularly business-friendly place,” says David Bruckmeier, a sub-Saharan business intelligence analyst at London-based political risk firm AKE Group. “Outright hostile action against major foreign investors is rare, but bureaucracy, pervasive corruption, an unfavorable tax system and disputes with investors hurt investment,” he says.

Nigeria’s GDP contracted 13.8% in the first quarter, wiping out last year’s economic gains.

The only country to do that of late is Venezuela. And like Venezuela, Nigeria has also dealt with blackouts in the power grid—six of them this year.

“Electricity price controls are a big problem,” says Benedict Craven, a Nigeria analyst for the EIU. “The private sector is given little incentive to invest.”

According to USAID, the main U.S. government international aid organization, Nigeria has the potential to generate over 12,000 megawatts of electricity daily. On most days, it generates around 4,000 megawatts.

A March 25 documentary by the BBC, Africa Eye, said half of Nigeria’s population has no access to electricity and those that do face daily power cuts that can last for hours.

This is the kind of stuff that happens in Venezuela, a country facing U.S. sanctions, three years of economic depression and a government with dwindling support. Unlike Venezuela, Nigeria is the eighth-largest recipient of international aid. And the second largest in Africa.

Nigeria has Africa’s largest gas reserves, some 190 trillion cubic feet. Yet for all of this great oil and gas wealth, the country’s electrical grid is a charade.

“Perhaps most worryingly of all, the damage being done by a range of investor disputes where basic property and contractual rights are being violated seems to be on the increase,” says Shanker Singham, CEO of The Competere Group, a legal and trade advisory firm in London. “The erosion of Nigeria’s commitment to the rule of law is highly worrying, both from a political and an economic perspective,” Singham says.

The most notable disputes are with South Africa telecom MTN Group, an energy project with Process & Industrial Development (P&ID), and a hydroelectric contract between Sunrise Power and Chinese investors.

In the P&ID case, a London court in January 2017 said Nigeria owed the company $6.6 billion plus interest, a significant percentage of Nigeria’s $44 billion of foreign currency reserves.

Both P&ID and Sunrise have been a thorn in Nigeria’s side, with Nigeria’s government on one side saying they were duped by P&ID as far back as 2012, and courts ruling against their defense on the other. So far, these two disputes alone have easily led to more than $11 billion in international legal awards against the Buhari government.

As for the P&ID saga, the company’s main complaint relates to the government’s failure to complete a pipeline and other critical infrastructure. The project would have generated annually up to 2,000 megawatts of electricity for residential and commercial use. The company initiated arbitration proceedings in 2012, the standard legal set up for international investor disputes.

“Whether its calculations regarding its supposed investments and foregone profits are plausible is a different matter—but the government never made any effort to challenge them anyway. Nor is it surprising that Nigeria failed to show up to court hearings in the case,” says AKE Group’s Bruckmeier. “This is exemplary of the unprofessional and nonchalant attitude Nigeria often displays in such matters.”

P&ID is in limbo.

“We are well aware of the government’s efforts to characterize P&ID, and its founders, as frauds,” Brendan Cahill, the company’s founder, told Nigerian daily This Day Live on May 15 in a Q&A published on its website.

“The arbitrators in London spent five years carefully reviewing the written agreement and all the facts surrounding the deal, and in the end, they unanimously concluded that Nigeria was to blame for the deal’s collapse and had to pay damages to P&ID,” he says. “Not once during those five years did Nigeria present the courts with any evidence that there had been some kind of fraud—because there wasn’t one.”

That battle continues in the courts.

Then there is Sunrise Power.

Sunrise recently brought Nigeria and its Chinese partners before the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Nigeria faces another $2.3 billion fine in arbitration over breach of contract. Sunrise was behind the Mambilla hydroelectric dam project. It would have been Nigeria's biggest hydropower plant, capable of generating 3,050 megawatts of power.

There have been no new developments in the arbitration case as of May 20.

Nigeria’s energy woes are costing it a fortune. It is also making some bond analysts nervous, judging by an article in the Financial Times recently saying Nigeria was facing “a looming external debt crisis.” Its external debt increased $12 billion in three years, going from $10 billion to $22 billion between 2015 and 2018.

“Their debt service eats up 60% of their government revenue and is rising according to the IMF,” says Andrew Roche, managing partner at Finexem in Paris. “If they do not raise revenue, and if they can’t continue borrowing for whatever reason, then we are looking at a potential default or at least a period of dried up financing for Nigeria.”

The economy is expected to grow at just 2% this year, according to Fitch. They have Nigeria’s credit outlook as stable. Its bonds are rated B+, a low-tier speculative grade credit.

Nigeria’s general government debt is expected to rise to 292% of revenue, well above the historical B-rated credit, thanks in part to the government’s lack of progress on raising government revenue. Debt-to-GDP is below 30%. But interest payments on the debt owed to bondholders—which includes local banks—is estimated to be around 20% of general government revenue, more than twice that of average B-rated countries.

“Nigeria’s markets are broken, but not in the sense that they don’t work,” says Jan Dehn, head of research for the Ashmore Group, an emerging and frontier market investment firm with holdings in Nigerian stocks and dollar-denominated debt. “Opportunities rise, get exploited, and then they end,” he says, noting that Nigeria was kicked out of the Barclays global bond index due to capital controls in 2015. Much of Wall Street’s institutional client base left.

“I’ve had positive experiences with officials at the central bank and in the banks,” Dehn says. “But the quality of the (federal) government varies.”

Buhari was reelected in February. Investors hope he can signal a new direction for economic policy in the months ahead.

With regards to Nigeria’s investor disputes with the two energy projects, Singham estimates that the P&ID dispute can cost Nigeria nearly 40% of their foreign reserves, calling it “a significant threat to investor confidence” if not settled. Nigeria has yet to pay the settlement.

“P&ID is a bigger deal than MMT and Sunrise,” he says in a phone interview from London. “If I was the Nigerian government trying to signal that we were back in business, I would do something about that case first,” he says.

Global capital moves quickly. These little signals can be a powerful mover in a country that most investors believe is heading in the wrong direction. On the other hand, there is a consensus that Nigeria can transform itself pretty quickly.

“Is there the political will in a new Buhari government? It might just be more of the same,” says Singham. “Change is not always about one leader. When you want to get a country to improve, you need to give oxygen to the reform-minded people in the country. I think we at least have something we can work with Buhari.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/28/nigeria-has-become-africas-money-losing-machine/#54b2dc5477ac

in other words.BUHARI HAS FINISHED NIGERIA

Incompetence

Lifestone:

Sincerely I couldn't get your point of view. Are you justifying the present crops of those managing our economy?

I am not sure if you even want to get my point. Nigeria is totally confused right now and anyone can justify their failure as success or success as failure. The only fact remains that the so called African international economists have let us down since structural adjustment, another name for devaluations.

We went from surplus and even went through a war without borrowing a kobo.

What changed? Wide open forex because big fat cats wanted to import. Some poor people support them I must say because they think there was a conspiracy to damage import market which was mainly used for used, new and charitable vanities brought into the market. All the money taken out never generated value in return.

Indeed, it generated unanticipated forex millionaires or billionaires in the North. The common man got crumbs out of their petty trade.

Read that report again, it tells you about how much foreign companies brought or did not bring in. Nothing about how much they are taking out. Actually, no economic report would tell you how much they are taking out of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general.

Unless you read Oxford Report or another one by headed by South Africa former President Mbeki: trillions leaked out! How could they bring millions or billions in and take trillions out and expect us to prosper?

Every politician, judges and yes our businessmen claim they are in profitable businesses. Ask any of them how much forex has anyone generated for Nigeria out of their profitable business since Independence. If anything they go to Central and local banks to raid foreign income generated by oil and other natural resources. What did South-south get back, even when their own son was in charge? More polluted environment where common fisher man could not and still cannot make a living.

Dangote promised to start generating forex soon and only soon. What about Adenuga, Innoson and Odetola? None of them could generate one American dollar or one British dollar into the Country?

As for the present Government, I am not their defender. All the government still employ these foreign experts to manage our economy. But give one credit to Buhari - he has asked over and over again for someone to show him one country that ever recovered from devaluation. His primordial instinct is right even if you disagree with him politically.

Jonathan has a PhD and his cabinet was full of those that could have showed us how to take a country into promised land. Actually, he might have been better off with Prof. Soludo than Ngozi Nweala that never had a single university or private sector experience and played opposite role during OBJ and Jonathan governments.

Hey, what do I know.

ivandragon:



I beg to differ on PMB being held hostage...


the man is who he is... a man is does not have the basic grasp of what purposeful & progressive leadership is all about.

he has knowingly surrounded himself with people who share the same primitive socioeconomic reasoning with himself...

A man that does not know how many years students spend in secondary school is held hostage only by his ignorance and hypocrisy’s. Nigeria as a country is over! We are just deceiving ourselves

All hail buhari ...the fossil and relics of antiquity..

With him all things negative is possible

googi:


I am not sure if you even want to get my point. Nigeria is totally confused right now and anyone can justify their failure as success or success as failure. The only fact remains that the so called African international economists have let us down since structural adjustment, another name for devaluations.

We went from surplus and even went through a war without borrowing a kobo.

What changed? Wide open forex because big fat cats wanted to import. Some poor people support them I must say because they think there was a conspiracy to damage import market which was mainly used for used, new and charitable vanities brought into the market. All the money taken out never generated value in return.

Indeed, it generated unanticipated forex millionaires or billionaires in the North. The common man got crumbs out of their petty trade.

Read that report again, it tells you about how much foreign companies brought or did not bring in. Nothing about how much they are taking out. Actually, no economic report would tell you how much they are taking out of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general.

Unless you read Oxford Report or another one by headed by South Africa former President Mbeki: trillions leaked out! How could they bring millions or billions in and take trillions out and expect us to prosper?

Every politician, judges and yes our businessmen claim they are in profitable businesses. Ask any of them how much forex has anyone generated for Nigeria out of their profitable business since Independence. If anything they go to Central and local banks to raid foreign income generated by oil and other natural resources. What did South-south get back, even when their own son was in charge? More polluted environment where common fisher man could not and still cannot make a living.

Dangote promised to start generating forex soon and only soon. What about Adenuga, Innoson and Odetola? None of them could generate one American dollar or one British dollar into the Country?

As for the present Government, I am not their defender. All the government still employ these foreign experts to manage our economy. But give one credit to Buhari - he has asked over and over again for someone to show him one country that ever recovered from devaluation. His primordial instinct is right even if you disagree with him politically.

Jonathan has a PhD and his cabinet was full of those that could have showed us how to take a country into promised land. Actually, he might have been better off with Prof. Soludo than Ngozi Nweala that never had a single university or private sector experience and played opposite role during OBJ and Jonathan governments.

Hey, what do I know.

Seems you and the writer are now back on same page. Nigeria has done very little to better her lots since 2015, simple.
Most of the issues you raised are to be addressed by either fiscal or monetary policies for which our current economic managers are struggling to figure out.
Fixing rent seeking by opportunists is the responsibility of governance and there is no dodging. We need someone with strong and practical understanding of how to make our resources work for the good of the country to head the economic team. Nigeria is presently the drag in the growth rate of the continent.The how to make this country Nigeria work appears cheap to me, I wonder why they are making it look complicated.

when u elect a shoe shiner as president

Funny thing about people like you us that you act like PDP was any beta but any sane n average reasonable or intelligent person understand PDP was worse in every indices compared to Bihari but you lot just chose to wail your sorrow filled heart out now cos Buhari is a northerner why doesn’t gives flying fucqs about you Igbos.

ivandragon:



I beg to differ on PMB being held hostage...


the man is who he is... a man is does not have the basic grasp of what purposeful & progressive leadership is all about.

he has knowingly surrounded himself with people who share the same primitive socioeconomic reasoning with himself...

Imagine the number of foolish Igbo Ipob lunatics that lack knowledge of anything being discussed talking trash and won’t let knowledgeable people debate in peace. Na wa for the bunch of fools PDP is raising on NL,

googi:


I am not sure if you even want to get my point. Nigeria is totally confused right now and anyone can justify their failure as success or success as failure. The only fact remains that the so called African international economists have let us down since structural adjustment, another name for devaluations.

We went from surplus and even went through a war without borrowing a kobo.

What changed? Wide open forex because big fat cats wanted to import. Some poor people support them I must say because they think there was a conspiracy to damage import market which was mainly used for used, new and charitable vanities brought into the market. All the money taken out never generated value in return.

Indeed, it generated unanticipated forex millionaires or billionaires in the North. The common man got crumbs out of their petty trade.

Read that report again, it tells you about how much foreign companies brought or did not bring in. Nothing about how much they are taking out. Actually, no economic report would tell you how much they are taking out of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general.

Unless you read Oxford Report or another one by headed by South Africa former President Mbeki: trillions leaked out! How could they bring millions or billions in and take trillions out and expect us to prosper?

Every politician, judges and yes our businessmen claim they are in profitable businesses. Ask any of them how much forex has anyone generated for Nigeria out of their profitable business since Independence. If anything they go to Central and local banks to raid foreign income generated by oil and other natural resources. What did South-south get back, even when their own son was in charge? More polluted environment where common fisher man could not and still cannot make a living.

Dangote promised to start generating forex soon and only soon. What about Adenuga, Innoson and Odetola? None of them could generate one American dollar or one British dollar into the Country?

As for the present Government, I am not their defender. All the government still employ these foreign experts to manage our economy. But give one credit to Buhari - he has asked over and over again for someone to show him one country that ever recovered from devaluation. His primordial instinct is right even if you disagree with him politically.

Jonathan has a PhD and his cabinet was full of those that could have showed us how to take a country into promised land. Actually, he might have been better off with Prof. Soludo than Ngozi Nweala that never had a single university or private sector experience and played opposite role during OBJ and Jonathan governments.

Hey, what do I know.

I see your point.

However what was interesting is Nigeria did not challenge the arbitration proceedings. I agree that foreign investors do not necessarily mean progress for a nation, but what has Nigeria done in the way to encourage local investors.


I do not really agree with your point on NOI though. During her tenure with Jonathan, Nigeria had a level of clarity on her economic indexes and she did seriously warn about the incoming recession. Infact APC used her warnings as a launchpad for campaign. I read her policy on Nigeria's economic development and it made a lot of sense and in fact it worked.

She advocated that we should divest our economy from oil price dependency in effect, she advocated for the Excess Crude Account and National Sovereign Fund. With these vehicles, Nigeria was able to build a buffer against oil price fluctuation.

On his own Soludo advocated that stronger financial institutions will help economic development therefore requiring banks to increase their capital base. This helped some industries like Dangote, etc to build due to the financial capacity of the banks to support them.

However, development is work in progress and in 2007-09, Sanusi noticed that recklessness and lack of clarity of the banks, He advocated for increased risk management and more probity.

Every economy is a continuum. It is dynamic and creates newer problems and opportunities. Malaysia, Singapore and co did not grow by shutting out the Harvard and Co graduates. They managed them.

What this current administration has done since 2015 is to raise nationalistic and ethnic sentiments. Yes, we know the west is not father Christmas, foreign investors are not here to play nice, but since 2015, what problem area has being observed? How has it being solved, what are the results and what are the next action?

I have watched Nigeria's economy with understanding since 1983 and as an adult since 1993. The truth is, the best time was between 2002-2010, 2011-2014 was panic starting, and since 2015, it hs being down hill. Yes, since 2017, there has being a containment of the 2015 crises, however, blaming Jonathan or NOI in 2019 assumes they had an Eden in 2011. Far from that, Sanusi under Jonathan had to solve problems created by Soludo. NOI under Jonathan had to consolidate on policies she started under Obasanjo and was interrupted.

The present administration do not seem to have any economic understanding nor solution to proffer. Everything is simply going down.

Naijaseeker,

Well reasonable people can agree to disagree. But I agree that economy should not only be continuously well managed, it could be managed well if these foreign trained had our national interest at heart.

Yes, from Soludo to Sanusi to Iweala as OBJ Finance Zsar about depending less on forex and making sure the banks were solid.

I am even going to agree with you that Ngozi warned about disaster without savings and governors defied her or Jonathan was too weak.

However, the same lady that preached fiscal responsibility and advocated paying off Paris loan (which could have been better negotiated according to Prof. Soludo); championed borrowing under Jonathan because of "low interest rate".

Anyone familiar with banks tactics in foreign countries, knows they always get you hooked on teaser rates. If Ngozi had private experience, she could have been wiser in view of her previous caution with OBJ.

Well, everyone preached diverse economy well before Ngozi.

I am surprised though that you did not mention all the businesses making profits before Independence but not contributing a red cent to our forex. Beverage and chocolate companies, foreign and local businesses scrambling for foreign reserve with common man on the street and with school fees payers.

You know they also laundered money on top. We then attract foreigners with high interest rate while discouraging local businesses from borrowing at 20%.

As for good economy in Nigeria, the only time I remember was when pound was one to one and when naira was one and a half American dollars. Sorry, any other time is oblivious in my memory.

Forbes should not disturb us. We are on the next level.

googi:
Naijaseeker,

Well reasonable people can agree to disagree. But I agree that economy should not only be continuously well managed, it could be managed well if these foreign trained had our national interest at heart.

Yes, from Soludo to Sanusi to Iweala as OBJ Finance Zsar about depending less on forex and making sure the banks were solid.

I am even going to agree with you that Ngozi warned about disaster without savings and governors defied her or Jonathan was too weak.

However, the same lady that preached fiscal responsibility and advocated paying off Paris loan (which could have been better negotiated according to Prof. Soludo); championed borrowing under Jonathan because of "low interest rate".

Anyone familiar with banks tactics in foreign countries, knows they always get you hooked on teaser rates. If Ngozi had private experience, she could have been wiser in view of her previous caution with OBJ.

Well, everyone preached diverse economy well before Ngozi.

I am surprised though that you did not mention all the businesses making profits before Independence but not contributing a red cent to our forex. Beverage and chocolate companies, foreign and local businesses scrambling for foreign reserve with common man on the street and with school fees payers.

You know they also laundered money on top. We then attract foreigners with high interest rate while discouraging local businesses from borrowing at 20%.

As for good economy in Nigeria, the only time I remember was when pound was one to one and when naira was one and a half American dollars. Sorry, any other time is oblivious in my memory.

If you noticed, I said I was an adult by the 1990s, I never encountered the Pound economy. I did not mention the foreign companies making money from Nigeria since before the 1960s because I did not see the need to mention them. My argument is simply,"why the unnecessary fascination with Okonjo Iweala in the face of a government without any economic understanding or agenda".

The original post is how Nigeria has been losing money and investments since 2015. Your counter was to shift the blame on NOI and Harvard trained economists.

However, Nigeria has been reaped off way before NOI and still is after NOI. Between the times I can remember till date, her period was the best. Buhari has been in power before and is in power now. What has he done? For 5 years nothing but blame NOI and you seem to blame her for the companies which has been reaping off Nigeria since 1500. Private individuals are not saints anywhere in the world. These companies also reap off their home governments.

Your argument seem to assume an inherent goodwill in man. Human beings are selfish and need control and that is the responsibility of the government. The relevant question is, what is the economic agenda of this present administration for Nigeria. Blame GEJ and NOI?

This is what the bastard terrorist has reduced a once flourishing country to yet some unfortunate and useful idiats are still supporting him because of primitive sentiment!
Spits on all of them!!

Front0lane:
Funny thing about people like you us that you act like PDP was any beta but any sane n average reasonable or intelligent person understand PDP was worse in every indices compared to Bihari but you lot just chose to wail your sorrow filled heart out now cos Buhari is a northerner why doesn’t gives flying fucqs about you Igbos.

yawns...


are you done spewing your vile ethnic bile?


that a previous administration did not live up to expectations does not stop the present from being criticized.

the article has clearly stated the failings of your tingod, you should be more concerned on focusing on how he should move the nation forward rather than being a jerk...

5oyad:


A man that does not know how many years students spend in secondary school is held hostage only by his ignorance and hypocrisy’s. Nigeria as a country is over! We are just deceiving ourselves

Even the worst optimist knows that Nigeria is finished! This country is headed for the rocks and if the world fails to intervene and see how it can be divided into small manageable parts then they should be ready to take care of tens of millions of refugees within the country as well as others that will scatter all over the the Sahel, Sahara desert, Mediterranean Sea and down to their shores in Europe. Nigeria is currently the world's worst Ponzi scheme and should be dissolved with immediate effect. In all these yet the bastards that are ruling are only after how to protect primitive and savage herdsmen while population keeps ballooning. I fear anybody who is afraid for the present and future of this unfortunate country.

Buhari keep scoring an all time low .

rusher14:
“Change is not always about one leader. When you want to get a country to improve, you need to give oxygen to the reform-minded people in the country. I think we at least have something we can work with Buhari.”

Trust me you cannot work with Buhari. You can only work for him except you're in APC or the cabal. Face the truth in honour!

I blame Yorub-ass and Tinubu for reelecting the man