Letter to the investor friends of Nigeria
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
Dear Investor friends of Nigeria
Food security is national security. what can you do for us?
i have recently written to my course mates and class mates as to what we could do for our selves.
we have the brains at home at in diaspora. at home 9000 professors,60,000 lecturers, 1.8 milion undegraduates, 300,000 post graduates.we have the entrepreneurs 41 mllioin SMES,7 milion manufacturing workers and more! but........... we nedd POWER! Electric POWER! megawatts and megawatts bof power at least 50,000 megawatts we have only 6000 megawatts.
I have come to plea for Nigeria not to put her down or to bury her
we need to rescue 100 milion nigerians from drinking contaminated water, otherwise known as killler water. Water is life! the water crisis is a womans crisis!
we need to rescue 40 million nigerians from defecating in the open. the sanitation economy isa multi billion dollar economy,,sanitary ware including smart toilets. i have been a toilet cleaner. call me a public health hero you might not be wrong!
i met an English Lord of a famed banking family and asked him for 30 billlion dollars to create one milion jobs a month for 24 months because there are 23 milion nigerians unempoyed and more under employed. i hope he did not think me crazy
there are said to be 19 milion nigerians into drugs, internet fraud ,gambbling,kidnapping banditry and terrorism
praise my beloved Nigeria but do i pity het?
Nigeria Today is in the financial times of london, the worlds leading financial newspaper published since 1888!
yyes this is where Nigeria should be! because we badly need the atention of the financial world for milions ans, am=nd bilions and
Cornelius Hamelberg
Many Thanks for these alert letters to our Nigerian Authorities. If only they would respond adequately to these wake-up calls, and not ignore them, brush them aside, or sweep them under the carpet.
This last set of figures is so surreal, I had to try to source them.
As you said, Financial Times: Nigeria. Of course, Nigeria with a population of 220 million plus and growing, Financial Times and the predatory, profit-making exporters in the business of exporting to Nigeria are salivating non-stop at the prospect of Nigeria continuing to be one of their largest markets, a veritable dumping ground for their industrial waste, all manner of finished products, clothes, pharmaceuticals, cement, building materials, refrigerators, old and used cars, trucks, tankers, spare parts, all kinds of electronics, electricity generators, mobile phones, weapons, ammunition, skin-lightening creams, human and artificial hair wigs for the beautifiers, flying saucers, maybe even toilet paper, here's a comprehensive list of the items Nigeria imports
In the meantime when it comes to human potential, Nigeria’s main export can be summarised in two words: brain drain. What steps must be taken to reverse this?
Doctors, engineers, teachers, even Christian missionary preachers, want to take the word & the good news to America ( where the honey is, and where the bread is buttered better) and there the figures are truly frightening - that a country that has or is supposed to have set a premium on education as the sine qua non of development at least since that education trajectory kicked off in the West - God bless Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for his input when he could, in the areas of education, agriculture, industrialisation, and yet this our sleeping giant of Africa that set out on the road of development and self-sufficiency since Independence is now busy with exporting her human potentials, for lack of faith in opportunities, a place and a future to be found within the borders of the Federal Republic - and here too we should not be surprised to hear this as the culmination to the long series ending in wannabe Obi Cried
Gentle ladies and Gentlemen, do not despair. The two shortest sentences in Christian Scripture:
1. Jesus wept
2. Pray Always
Sleeping Giant, there’s more to learn and be inspired by in You Must Set Forth at Dawn
Cornelius Hamelberg
Sir Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth,
Losing one’s life savings or investments is bound to be a tragedy fit for weeping about. This goes for whoever, scholars, investment bankers, speculators, shysters, and a host of e.g. nondescript wanna-be-next-president- of-Nigeria who may have invested heavily in that kind of enterprise, hoping to reap handsome dividends plus “ the sweets of office” in returns, only to realise that all such huge investments have actually all gone up in smoke the minute someone else is announced as the winner-takes-all. Under such psychological and emotional stress, this sort of news pops up in social media, millions of mighty £pounds sterling, dollars Akbar, old and new naira notes gone down the drain, and nothing gained. Well-wishers commiserate with him and them ( the losers). He who feels it knows…
If indeed, charity begins at home, and we take it for granted that home is Nigeria, then whilst we are at it, we could appeal to Nigeria’s monied class of billionaire entrepreneurs to please invest in Nigeria instead of investing abroad and on such a vast scale, cash down, buying up properties left, right and centre in the United Kingdom, apartments in Dubai, hotels in Spain and California.
All that’s needed is that by the collective will of the government and the people, Nigeria creates an attractive, safe business environment. Once that’s done and there’s confidence in the system, investments will be flowing in, flying in, and electronically transmitted through land, sea, and air. Remember what Bill Clinton said during his 1998 trip to South Africa? He said, live and direct on CNN; “ I hope that you good folks are listening to this: For every dollar that you invest here, you'll get 100 in return! “
Right now (today) China is also appealing for investments - here
Oga Kenneth Harrow told us yesterday, “the real orbit is the global economy, not a nation or national economy.”
If Nigeria does not have a favourable business climate when opportunity knocks where would you invest, in Nigeria or in China?
As our dearly departed Pius Adesanmi wished it, Naija No Dey Carry Last - and this is true; just approximately ten years ago it was SoupSweet Land ( SL) wae dae carry bokit, we’re sad to say, at least here with reference to the question which country pays the most bribes? As some stiff-upper-lip Creoles have been saying, since long ago, the country has gone to the dogs. I don’t know; I was last there more than half a century ago. But I’m in touch with Freetown on an almost daily basis. On the 24th of June, they will be battling it out again, once more a fight to the finish between the same presidential wannabes as the last time, this time between the SLPP’s Julius Maada Bio ( the incumbent) and his old challenger, the APC’s Samura Kamara . Hopefully, after the dust of battle has finally settled down the winner will get cracking with improving the business climate and alleviating the cost of living for the long-suffering masses, but before then, mark my words: The loser is not going to accept the election results, as a result of which a second civil war much worse than the first, is likely to break out ( N. B. Guinean soldiers have already occupied Yenga which they say belongs to them “since 1886”
Sir Augustine, you can say it once again, “ Na w ah O! “