Nigeria received about $8.4bn investment announcements as at 4th March 2021, out of which $5.46bn were pledged by foreign investors. The remaining $2.08bn was promised by domestic investors, statistics obtained from the Nigerian Investments Promotion Commission showed. The sum pledged by foreign investors in Q1 2021 is 27.5 per cent lower than the $7.54bn foreign investment announcements recorded by the NIPC in the preceding quarter. However, the Q1 foreign investment profile was 36.5 per cent higher than the $4.02bn reported in the corresponding period in 2020, but was 56.6 per cent lower than the S12.6bn recorded in the same period in 2019. In its ‘report of investment announcements in Nigeria (January – March 2021)’, the NIPC noted that the major sources of foreign investments announcements in Q1 2021 originated from Morocco, the United Kingdom and the United States. Investors from the three countries pledged $1.40bn, $0.24bn and $0.08bn respectively, while other investors from undisclosed countries pledged to invest $3.74bn in Nigeria’s economy. The report revealed that Bayelsa and Delta States were the top investment destinations during the period, followed by Akwa Ibom and Lagos States. Data obtained from the NIPC showed that Bayelsa State received the largest share of total announcements of $3.6bn in manufacturing, Delta State recorded $2.94 bn worth of announcements in construction and power transmission, Akwa Ibom State had $1.4bn announced in mining and quarrying, while Lagos State announcements totalled $0.26bn from electricity and manufacturing. By sector, manufacturing received the largest investment intention, at $5.08bn, followed by construction at $2.9bn, electricity at $0.26bn, agriculture $0.11bn, and others at $0.07bn. In terms of volume, NIPC said Nigeria received 15 projects across eight states in Q1 2020, compared to corresponding quarter of 2020 with 19 projects across 14 states including the Federal Capital Territory. Economists, who spoke on the decline, attributed it to the unfavorable investment climate the country fueled by serial currency devaluation, unstable foreign exchange rates, poor and inefficient infrastructure among other factors. A professor of economics at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-Iwoye, Sheriffdeen Tella, stated that the dwindling interest of foreign investors is as a result of inefficient power supply, naira depreciation and increased cost of production. He said, “The prices of electricity and other infrastructure are becoming more and more expensive, and because electricity is not efficient, so many companies are forced to utilise other sources such as power generation plants that use fuel, and the price of fuel has been going up. “So, that also adds to their costs and that discourages them from wanting to invest in the country. “Another thing is that the naira has been depreciating, even before the devaluation by the CBN. investors against enslaving Nigerians “So they are looking at it that when they make money in naira, if they want to convert it to foreign currencies, it won’t have much value. So, the instability of the value of naira is also part of it.” Another expert and the former Director-General of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr Chijioke Ekechukwu, noted that beyond the aforementioned factors, insecurity, corruption and unstable government policies were driving the decline. He said, “Top on the list is the level of insecurity that has bedeviled the country in the last few years and of course, you know that the insecurity worsened every day. “Another factor is the level of inflation and the fact that the exchange rates are not encouraging, then unstable government policies and finally corruption. “These factors are chasing investors to other neighboring African countries. Because the problems found here are absent in countries like Ghana.” According to Ekechukwu, the decline has direct implications for the Nigerian economy. He said, “The implications are we don’t have enough foreign exchange to be able to meet our demands; secondly, jobs that would have been created by these FDIs are no longer there, and they are going to other countries in Africa. “Thirdly, these investments should have added to our GDP but they are not. So our GDP is just growing marginally instead of significantly.” The experts urged the Federal Government to tackle the militating factors to create a suitable and attractive environment that would interest investors. Ekechukwu said the government should make sure the country was safe enough for people to live in and do their businesses.

PAN-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, on Sunday said the Nigerian nation is at the brink of an avoidable catastrophe that requires urgent actions, declaring that the most potent recipe to prevent the catastrophe was to restructure and return the country to true federalism. Afenifere gave this position on Sunday as part of the resolutions of its Executive Council, after reviewing recent developments in the country, at its meeting held at the Lagos residence of its acting leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, last week, declaring further that signs were “ominous requiring steps to prevent the country from apocalypse.” This was as the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, in the statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, copy of which was made available to the Nigerian Tribune, threw its support for the recent resolutions of Southern governors placing a total ban on open grazing and having state police established in the country. According to the statement, Afenifere at the meeting presided over by Pa Adebanjo; the Deputy Leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan; Chief Sola Ebiseni (Secretary-General), Chief Supo Sonibare (Treasurer), Abagun Kole Omololu (National Organising Secretary), Comrade Jare Ajayi (Publicity Secretary), Adebayo Adenekan (Secretary for the Diaspora), Dr Akin Fapohunda (Director of Research) and Mogaji Gboyega Adejumo, called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the National and state Assemblies “and all other concerned authorities to ensure that restructuring takes place within the remaining part of this year.” ‌The group demanded that implementation of restructuring towards achieving true Federalism must begin before the middle of next year. On the stance of the Southern Governors Forum (SGF) on open grazing, Afenifere said it was in full support of the state helmsmen to have laws banning such practice latest by September 1, urging the remaining states to enact the same law expeditiously. Besides, the pan-Yoruba group called for immediate enforcement of the law in order to put an end to various vices that the act of open grazing was engendering, even as it frowned at the disapproval being expressed by some Northern elements to the position of Southern governors and querying the basis for such. Afenifere, in its resolutions, maintained that the seeming intractable security challenges in the country were due largely to the restraint put in the way of state governors, positing that governors were described as Chief Security Officers of their respective states, yet they had no security agency that could be deployed to where crimes were being committed with arms. The group said this must change, demanding that state police, down to the level of local government, must become operational immediately. “The governors are described as Chief Security Officers of their respective states, yet they have no security agency that can be deployed to where crimes are being committed with arms. “Those of them who came up with some security apparatus like Amotekun are disempowered because they could not bear arms. And when they arrest suspected criminals, such suspects must be handed over to the police. “As experiences have shown, once this is done, hardly do such cases go beyond the police. And the state security body has no control anymore since the police is a Federal agency who does not take order from the governor. This must change. State police, down to the level of local government, must become operational immediately,” the communiqué asserte.