₦airaland Forum

proeast:
Bollocks!!!!!

I was carefully reading all the trash people are saying here about the SE and I couldn't but shake my head at the ignorance being exhibited.

Firstly, SE came 3rd out of 6 regions. Outperforming other regions that have 7 and 6 states!!

Secondly, who doesn't know that the useless FG have been frustrating FDI's that ought to have birthed in the SE?? To be honest, I'm even surprised that we came 3rd despite all these state sanctioned policies against the SE.

We all know that Abuja is responsible for the NC that got 11%. Likewise Lagos being responsible for the SW having that bogus figure. Forget about Ogun, it is only snapping up the overflow from Lagos.

However, my biggest disappointment is in the SS. With all the oil resources and ports, yet nothing to show for it.

The oppression against the SE is becoming unbearable and something will definitely give in the near future. The Enugu international airport has been closed for so long now. The rails has been built in other regions but non here. Every other region has several federal government agencies and institutions but SE has not even one!! A region that is heavily into commerce and business has no single dry port but NW and other regions have!!

Inasmuch as I'm not exonerating our governors, but aside the fat and iresponsible efulefu in Abia state, I don't think other regions have got better governors than those in the SE. Forget about the noise.

If the SE could come 3rd despite all the desperate wicked acts by the central government against us, imagine where we would be if only there is equal playing ground for all.

THANK GOD WE HAVE WHAT OTHERS CAN'T HAVE I.E THE GREATEST NUMBER OF LOCAL INVESTMENTS AND THE OPPORTUNITY TO TURN TRADING INTO MANUFACTURING

USELESS COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!

Kennydoc:
Actually what? Isn't that 0.5%? I don't understand.

Kennydoc:
This article is simply meaningless and useless. Why the emphasis on the South East with 0.22% when other regions are not necessarily doing great?

South South had only 0.5% of the investments despite their proximity to the sea and having some of the richest states in Nigeria like Rivers, Delta etc.

North East and North West have less than 0.05% each, despite the Centre of Commerce of the North (Kano) being in the North West.

North Central has about 11.5% and that's mostly because of Abuja. Other North Central States like Benue, Kogi etc wouldn't have got much.

At the end, most of the investments went to Lagos and Ogun simply because Lagos has got the population, and is the commercial capital of Nigeria while Ogun is simply enjoying the overflow from Lagos.

Comparative figures, as gleaned from NBS estimates, indicate that within the same period (2013 – 2020), other zones of the country received the following capital importation: Southwest $81,808,183,342.05 (87.70%wink; South-South, $470,688,204.67 (0.50%); North Central, $10,732,800,098.87 (11.51%); North east, $ 39,414,980.00 (0.04%); and Northwest, $29,959,790 (0.03%).

Chimookigwe:
[s][/s]

Even Shuna Ashebe did not type up to this before he started crying for a Nobel Prize.
When you are tired of typing worthless stories, you would go and carry headpan to pack the refuse at Aba and stop waiting for the others to clean your surroundings.
You are crying of marginalisation but tomorrow, you start making noise that you developed the whole world. Why don't you pick up a story and stick to it instead of showing diverse stupidity.

rdokoye:
Church city...lmao; from one of those pastors. Typical. There's no information on the project, website is down. So...can't confirm anything.

rdokoye:
Stop being obtuse. I said, investments in Yorubaland (OUTSIDE LAGOS). That project isn't anywhere near the size of abakaliki, it's less than 100 homes.

Enugu Lifestyle & Golf City is about 7 times larger, and it's one local investment in Enugu: https://www.enugulifestyleandgolfcity.com/

horsepower102:
For those interested, this is my response to this sensationalist thread


https://www.nairaland.com/6049942/what-igbos-need-need-understand

rdokoye:
Anambra Attracts $4 Billion Investments in Two Years



That was in 2015 to 2016.

rdokoye:
I said in the other 5 Yoruba states. Show me the equivalent. Everyone invests in Lagos, how big is Dangote's investment? Billions.

IvarTheBoneless:
AfonjaConehead right now...

rdokoye:
Find me a local investor doing something on the scale of this: https://www.awkamillenniumcity.com/

In Yorubaland (outside Lagos).

OkutaNla:
Guy, you better quit flattering yourself. I don't know what it's like in PH where you're based, but here in Lagos na Yoruba people dey reject igbo tenants and it's not even a secret. Yorubas hardly rent houses owned by igbos, rather the reality is the other way round. So I repeat, don't flatter yourself.

Igbochief001:
Lol igr ? What did u study in school ?

Nigeira gdp is over 400 billion dollars ...our revenue from tax is like $5 billion dollars ...dose that make sense ? Bros I'm done with u

Believe what u wish

explorer250:
who conducted the study

gwafaeziokwu:


See love. Yoruba youths have finally lost it. So foreign investment is the new gold?

Wow!!

Ndigbo biko, never leave your indigenous economic model and start listening to these people who love owambe more than anything. We are not cut from the same stock abeg. Leave us with our economic model. You like the easy way out, while we like to work it out! While one enslaves you forever, the other make you eternal boss!

Few years ago ,you guys laughed at our apprentice model as if we pooed on our trousers, today it is been studied in major universities in the world. Ndiigbo and their future generations has locked down wealth through it.

Today, it's FDI. You guys don't get it. WE ARE THE FU**ING DIRECT INVESTMENT FOR CHRIST SAKE.
Our wealth is spread out to all nations of the world. All we need do is to bring it back. That is our drive. Aku luo uno!! Let our wealth reach home and we are fine.

See this mugus.

Igbochief001:
When I call u dumb now u go complain

Sales volume ...yes all value of all goods that exchange hand in alaba is upto 4 billion dollars ...I didn't say profit ...Bros go n read ..u can argue with them if u wish

Igbochief001:
https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_neuwirth_the_age_old_sharing_economies_of_africa_and_why_we_should_scale_them?language=en


Educate your self Oga

AfonjaConehead:
I yam attacking the cnhd

Igbochief001:
That's according to havard

Igbochief001:
We call the biggest business incubation system helping others ask others ...alaba market alone does $4 billion in trade ...talk of balogun ?and the rest in Lagos

And all the market in Lagos is nothing compared to onitsha and ariaria markets ....so Bros when we talk about helping others we know what it is

T9ksy:
...........whilst ibos only spew "love" at everyone else in the country, ba?

TheZooHasFalln:
Chineke kpokwaa ya oku dia

Sammy07:
The last time I check, guardian is owned by a native of delta state.

AfonjaConehead:
Deeply concerned self appointed minister of Igbo affairs lolsssssss

Despite relative peace in the region, the Southeast zone has remained unattractive to investors, a situation analysts ascribe to unfriendly tax regimes, poor quality of infrastructure and low return on investment.



Of Nigeria’s $93,284,945,10559 billion foreign direct investments (FDI) between 2013 and first quarter of 2020, the Southeast got the least, amounting to a paltry $203,898,690 million and representing just less than one percent (0.22%) of the total investments.A breakdown of Southeast figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) within a seven-year threshold showed Abia State as having a total of $9,710,000 million in foreign direct investments between 2013 and 2014; Anambra State hosted $38,091,000 million within the same period; while Ebonyi had none of such investments at all. With figures put at $152,688,690 million (2013) and $151,490,000 (2014), amounting to some $304,178690 million, Enugu State was reported to have garnered the most investments within the period. Imo State had a total foreign direct investments of $3,500,000 between 2015 and 2019.

Stakeholders in the zone said the reason for the relatively low investments was because political leaders of the area had not paid attention to the economic frontiers of the region with a view to making it an industrial hub, as was the case in Southwest states of Lagos and Ogun. The Zone, they said, would, in the medium to long-term, borrow to sustain its socio-political operations as well as witness continuous workforce emigration in search of employment in other zones.

Although foreign investments in other zones (Southwest, South South, North Central, Northeast and Northwest), remain normal, Southwest has the largest chunk of the FDI. Some states in some of the zones have also managed to have industrial and mini-industrial hubs that are attractive to investors.

Comparative figures, as gleaned from NBS estimates, indicate that within the same period (2013 – 2020), other zones of the country received the following capital importation: Southwest $81,808,183,342.05 (87.70%; South-South, $470,688,204.67 (0.50%); North Central, $10,732,800,098.87 (11.51%); North east, $ 39,414,980.00 (0.04%); and Northwest, $29,959,790 (0.03%).


Reacting to the observation that regions in the northern part of the country also had low investments during the period, Development Expert, Dr Chiwuike Uba, insisted that figures on Southeast investments was abysmally low, especially as most donors and multilateral agency programme interventions were focused on the northern region, which made up for low investments in the area.

He also stated that low investment in Southeast states was a reflection of unpreparedness, lack of commitment to industrialisation, and poor business environment prevalent in the region.

Citing data from the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Uba stated that Ogun State had become home to manufacturing and agro-processing investments, with over 70 percent share of manufacturing investments in Nigeria between 2014 and 2017.
“The data reveals that 74.42 percent of manufacturers’ investment of N691.77 billion in 2014 went to Ogun State. This trend continued in 2015 and 2016 with the State having over 70% of the investments, while other zones shared the remaining investments, with Apapa and Ikeja having the bigger share of the investment. Evidently, from the available data, in 2017, Ogun and Lagos (Apapa and Ikeja) attracted 32.9ercent and 48.8 percent of the investments”

Given further reasons for the development, the Economist explained that manufacturers and other investors would often appreciate incentives because they were key enablers of investments. Ogun State had specifically offered tax and land rebates, as well as seamless issuance of certificate of occupancy, which lowered production costs. As part of the investment promotion and protection mechanisms, a one-stop-shop was established to facilitate easy and single point of contact for investors dealings with various ministries, departments, and agencies of the state.

On what the southeast region should do to change the ugly trend, Uba advised that the region needed to improve the business environment. “Currently, the region is not ranked well on the World Bank’s Sub-national Ease of Doing Business and on the AfriHeritage’s Business Environment and Competitiveness across Nigerian States (BECANS),” he said. “No real investor will invest in an environment or economy that does not support or grow his investment.

“South East does not have a functioning and operational industrial cluster. Unfortunately, most of the industrial layouts have been converted to estates. While the DAWN Commission in the South West has done so well for the region in promoting investments, our own South East Governors’ Forum Secretariat, which ultimately should serve as the think-tank, seems to be more political than it should be.

“Clearly, the region lacks strategic direction for industrialization and mobilization of investments. There is urgent need to create the right incentives to attract the right investments. We must rethink our strategy, model, and policies”

He added, however, that, while the Southeast battles with the internally induced constraints inhibiting investments, it was important to observe some of the external factors, including nearness to seaport and dry ports, among other advantages enjoyed by the South West that were not in the Southeast.

“While the region develops the dry ports and the free economic zones approved by the Federal Government, the dredging of River Niger to allow ferrying of goods with smaller ships would be of great importance to the economy of the region, as well. The zone needs to develop an industrialization plan, while it works to improve business environment. How many of the states in the South East have the States investment opportunities well defined and posted on the State’s website? In fact, with the exception of Anambra, almost all the states in the region have no dedicated agency for investment promotion and protection. For the states that have established one, it is operated like the typical political office with all the bureaucracy and managed by a politician,” he said.

He observed that the Southeast appeared to give more preference to foreign investors than to local investors. Foreign and domestic investors, he said, should be treated equally, in open, transparent, and dependable conditions.

“The region should provide basic infrastructures (school, good roads, hospitals, etc) needed to drive businesses. Investment positioning is very important. Kwara State showed what positioning can achieve when it created a positive business climate leading to the establishment of Songhai Farms public private venture.”

But a former Director at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), explained that investment in Nigeria had generally been low, pointing out that the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF), which included land development and production facilities, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), declined from 89.386 percent in 1981 to 19.018 percent in 2018.

He argued that investments, especially around third world countries, have been made to develop natural resources, like crude oil, coal and timber and by putting in place production and infrastructure facilities, stressing however that the southeast was naturally resource-poor and does not attract investment in that respect.

“The coal deposit in Enugu State, the oil and gas resources in Abia, Anambra and Imo States and the rock and metallic minerals in Ebonyi State are not being actively developed because they cannot be easily linked to the local economy or the export market. This is so because the region lacks economic infrastructure such as railways, waterways, roads, power, gas, water dams and ports. Without economic infrastructure, investment in production of made-goods and services, such as manufacturing, is difficult.

“Besides, fiscal policy of government makes manufacturing in the zone noncompetitive. Imports of a number of manufacturing inputs is restricted to Lagos, where there is an import inspection facility, making plants outside the Lagos area doubly noncompetitive against foreign and domestic producers. This explains why a number of manufacturers from the Southeast zone have large investments in pharmaceuticals, electrical goods and food manufacturing in the Lagos area, while their zone is deprived.”

He, however, expressed the hope that the Federal Government could remedy the investment gap by intentionally, investing in economic infrastructure in the Southeast.

“Economically, it will increase economic output and labour employment in the zone and in the country at large. Socially, it will foster community peace because the default internal emigration of economically active people from the Southeast zone is creating colonies in other zones that in the long-term will create disharmony by raising fear of dominance and exclusion. People from the zone can also be more intentional in their investment behaviour by limiting their investment outside the zone. This is important, not only for safety of the investment portfolio but also to attract economic infrastructure and foreign investments,” he suggested.

Aligning with Uba however, an Investor, Henry Chibuzo, observed that lack of political will, security threats, lack of coordination among governors of the zone and poor infrastructure had continued to discourage investment in the southeast region. He stated that ease of doing business in the zone had remained cumbersome, stressing that, even when an investor decided to live with it, low patronage from governments could cause an exit.

“I have also noticed that many states in the Southeast have Investment Promotion agencies but these agencies are not properly funded. There is no cohesion among them in terms of driving the southeast investment programme; everybody is pursuing investment at individual level. There ought to be strategic collaboration. The governors ought to come together. There is no strategic effort that can trickle down to investment attraction in the zone.”

He added that security threats had threatened investment in agriculture, especially since the rise in farmer/herder issues in the zone, stressing that certain investors that came into the zone and invested in agriculture in the Uzouwani area of Enugu State had their crops destroyed.

“Moving through the southeast, there are several checkpoints and the policemen on the road care less about who is coming. They are only there to exploit the people. Any investor, who probably was in the southwest, south-south and on coming into the southeast to discover this level of security checkpoints, will certainly not want to have any business to do here.”

An Estate Management Expert, Obichukwu Umeh, stated that governments of the zone had not given enough encouragement to Igbo Investors to deepen investment in the zone

Using what happens in the sector as a case study, he stated that only a few of his colleagues could invest in housing in the Southeast, as, according to him, “you are subjected to all manner of levies by community and government officials, even when you have paid exorbitantly to procure land. You pay to fence your land; you pay neighborhood security; you pay more than 20 percent of what you bought the land to get approval for your drawing, among others. It is not easy. That is why the cost of acquiring accommodation is too high in the zone compared to other zones of the country. That aside, provision of road, electricity and water among other facilities that could make the place habitable is also on the investor. These are the challenges.”

Citing a housing project he did in Asaba Delta State, he stated that when he indicated interest to do a low-cost housing on the land he provided, “the state government freely did the access road and extended electricity to the area. For the boreholes we sunk in the process of construction, the government also helped us to ensure that the water was reticulated, which actually helped to reduce cost on the occupants. So we really need to look inwards and encourage investment in this zone.”

The Southeast governors however stated that they had supported investors in the zone and had continued to provide platforms for interaction and make their businesses thrive in the area.

Director of Communications, Southeast Governors Forum, Mr Mike Udah, told The Guardian that the governors “are in frequent contact with Southeast Chamber of Commerce and other stakeholders with a view to boosting investment in the region.”

He added: “On a yearly basis, they organised the Southeast Economic Summit. The taxation regime in the Southeast is as friendly as ever. Recently, following the outbreak of COVID-19, the governors of the Southeast, went a step further to stop outright some levies and in some cases, reduce them in effort to ensure that investors and ordinary citizens do not suffer.”

As an interventionist plan, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo had recently set up the Alaigbo Stabilization Fund, in partnership with governors of the zone, to cure the infrastructural deficit of the Southeast and boost investments.

President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo had said, while inaugurating the 54-member Steering Committee for the Fund, that it was envisioned as key instrument to articulate strategies, mobilize resources and coordinate policies to assuage the deep yearnings of Ndigbo for prosperous development and happy home.

Nwodo explained during the inauguration that Igbo nation had resolved to urgently address the total neglect of the area by the Federal Government since after the civil war to build an industrialised homeland having modern world-class physical and social infrastructure, competitive, attractive for investments and generating employment for the teaming youthful population.

NGpatriot:

Bolowolowo:
Abeokuta is a no mans land

Information reaching us following a brief by business day newspaper, has it that, Investors has dumped Lagos State for Ogun State as the Gateway State becomes new industrial hub, while Amosun loyalist in the state gave the glory to the Former Governor of the State, and Senator Representing Ogun Central Senatorial District in the state, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.
According to analysis of the report, with what is obtainable on ground in the state since May 29th, 2019 the present administration took up power from the former governor in the state, it was too glaring that direct investors have shunned Lagos State in the last six years, sequel to a plan set up by the former governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, consisting cheaper environment for doing business in the state.


It was, however shown that, Ogun dwarfs Lagos in new real sector investments by 23 percent between 2014 and 2019 according to report, while data gathered by the newspaper suggested that the perceived surge in the companies relocation to Ogun State, may not have started with the present administration but been in plan since administration of former Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.

Recalled that, analysis also indicate that the development is owed solely on the immediate past administration, therefore seen appointees of the present administration in the state celebrating over Ibikunle Amosun hard work before handover power to the present administration in the state.
The report of the analysis has created a lot of argumentation on Social Media, where one of Ibikunle Amosun loyalist in the state said, the media handlers of this current administration didn’t read into details before crediting it to Governor Dapo Abiodun's administration. Adding that, they still have a lot to learn.