Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has expressed concern over the failure of the vice- president, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, executive secretary of Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Yewande Sadiku and top ministers of president Muhammadu Buhari cabinet to attend an investors meeting in Washington.
The former central bank boss disclosed this while addressing newsmen on Saturday at an investment program organized by the Nigerian embassy.
According to Sanusi no investor will take Nigeria serious if we are not serious. He maintained that it was very wrong that the Nigerian embassy in Washington will arrange ‘a Nigeria is open for Business forum’ with ministers in town, governors in town and yet none of them was actually present to meet with these investors.
“For the person sitting in London and who has a billion dollars to invest, hes got Nigeria, hes got Ghana, he’s got Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, you may be the biggest economy, but he may decide that rather than go through the hassle of investing $500 million in nigeria, why not put $100 million in Ghana, $100 million in Rwanda, $100 million in Cote d’Ivore, just to have diversification benefit and the benefit of reaching out,” Sanusi stated.
Apart from Minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi who was present at the event, Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture, Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of science and technology, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, and Kayode Fayemi, minister of solid minerals, were all in Washington but failed to attend the forum.
“We had a meeting today with investors, we were supposed to start by 9am we started at 10. When I came in they took me to the ambassador’s office to sit down, when investors were waiting down there. We had a list of people who were to be here, vice president, ministers, some of them are in town, but they haven’t come up he continued
“You invite top investors, your ministers are in Washington and they do not come to talk to the investors about Nigeria. That is not how you attract investors. If you have this forum in the Rwandan embassy, I assure you President Kagame himself would be there telling people to come to Rwanda.
“Sometimes it is about how we market ourselves, how we package ourselves. There is absolutely no reason for the Nigerian embassy to arrange a Nigeria is open for Business forum with ministers in town, with governors in town and not have the coordination that they are actually here to meet with these investors.
“There is no reason why we should start one hour late, and there is no reason why the public address system should not work. Because at the end of the day, this is the first point of the country, he hasn’t even come to Nigeria so what will be his experience in Abuja and he is saying if I am having this experience in Washington, what will happen when I go to Abuja, when I go to Kano, how do I get to see the governor will it take me 10 hours?” he added
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