Phillip Isakpa
The headquarters of Bloomberg in London is as impressively modernistic a setting as you could find for a business conference. Located behind a solidly old-fashioned classical exterior in Finsbury Square in the City, the interior has an ambiance of light and aluminium, of flashing screens and open-plan corporate excitement. This was the setting for a “high-level briefing” on “Nigeria: the New Investment Climate”. The billing lived up to its expectations confirming the reputation of Christian Udechukwu’s BusinessinAfrica Events as effective organisers of presentations of the case for Nigeria.
This was one of the first chances for Segun Aganga, Finance Minister in the government of President Goodluck Jonathan since April, to submit to exposure before a strong audience in the British capital. His was the pivotal role in the event, and his ‘keynote’ presentation articulated the appeal that now, above all, is the time to invest in Nigeria. As befitted a former employee of Goldman Sachs in this City of London, he was well-acquainted with how to make the pitch, using the right terms of reference such as McKinsey’s recent view that investors could not afford to ignore Nigeria’s economic growth, or the highlighting of Nigeria as a good investment prospect at the Reuters Emerging Markets Summit in Sao Paolo in July. That meeting was told that in the Goldman Sachs growth-environment index, which mixes a measure of economic and social development indicators, Nigeria’s score has doubled over the past decade. The Minister quoted Jim O’Neill, head of economic research at Goldman Sachs as saying: “If it were to show the same increase in its growth-environment score over the next decade, many investors will look back and say why the hell didn’t I invest in Nigeria”
O’Neill is credited with having invented the term BRICs (the group of new world economic powers – Brazil, Russia, India and China) whose interest and influence is one of the determining factors in present African prospects. Not surprisingly we heard much about them, especially as China last year became Africa’s principal trading partner. For in spite of the resilience of Western finance there has been a significant shift in the balance of world economic power in the past decade of which all in the room were certainly aware. Oba Otudeko, Chairman of the Honeywell Group and of the First Bank of Nigeria (one of Nigeria’s shrewdest business brains) stressed BRICs in his own well-considered intervention. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown (former Minister for Africa in the Gordon Brown government, and now actively engaged in the world of business), who chaired the meeting, has also made a habit of emphasising the importance of the BRICs. Minister Aganga also spoke of the recent visit to Nigeria of Jeffrey Sachs, probably the ultimate development guru of our times, whose message has been consistently bullish, and it was handy to have a view from such an authority that “this day is Nigeria’s day”.
Read Also: Marketing Edge Award: Eagleserve emerges Young Creative Agency of the Year
The burden of the Aganga message concerned how the figures were continuing to improve: in the first half of this year growth had passed the 7 per cent needed for take-off, to achieve 7.4 per cent (after having been 5.7 per cent in 2009) and how the aim was double digit growth, with the aim of being among the top 20 economies by 2020. He also noted that with the return of peace in the Niger Delta, oil production was growing again after a disappointing period. “We recognise there is room for improvement”, he finally conceded, noting especially an “infrastructure deficit” he put at $100bn.
Similar reality checks came from other speakers. Otudeko noted that Nigeria has only 20 million “banked” customers against over 60m. mobile phone subscribers, while Ms Arunma Oteh, Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wondered what 70m “banked” Nigerians would do for the economy. Both she and Bismarck Rewane (the man who discovered financial derivatives long before anyone else) considered the state of the capital markets following their recent turbulence, and gave some guardedly promising indications for the future. And Presidential Energy Adviser Professor Barth Nnaji, while basking in the glow of the recently-announced road map on solving the power crisis, and the prospects for privatisation, acknowledged that Nigeria was one of the world’s largest importers of both generators and diesel to fuel them.
If I have concentrated on the sales pitch rather than on the several admirable addresses, it is because that was what made the session memorable. It was smooth and persuasive, but it was still promises. The proof of the pudding, including the power road map, the new Asset Management Company, and the planned $1bn Sovereign Wealth Fund, will be in the eating. In the meantime, there is the hurdle of the presidential, state and parliamentary elections in January next year, happenings not without importance for future stability, and hence for investors. But, as Lord Malloch-Brown said, if Brazil was finally able to realise its promise, why not Nigeria?
