Kudos Sanusi For Rebuking FG, Ministers For Truancy In US —By Annkio Briggs

I read this on line in THIS DAY Newspapers. I recommend that every Nigerian no matter your background or interest should find time to read this article and conclude what type of irresponsible people are in position of power representing us in most cases against our will.

These same people want us to keep silent while they once again blindfold 97% of Nigerians and force them to accept the result of the 2019 elections while the 5% watch in dignified helplessness.

The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi 11, expressed disappointment over the Federal Government’s poor attitude to attract foreign investors. He said this in an interview with journalists at the on-going US-Nigeria Investment Summit 2018 taking place in Washington DC.

The theme of the event is supposed to be “Nigeria Is Open For Business” and top Nigerian government officials and ministers were billed to be there to market Nigeria.

According to Emir Sanusi he was disappointed when he arrived the venue Nigeria government officials were not on ground.

The Ministers who left Nigeria and were actually in Washington that did not turn up are:

1. Chief Audu Ogbeh Minister of Agriculture
2. Ogbonnaya Onu Minister of Science and Technology
3. Alhaji Lai Mohammed. Minister of Information and Culture
4. Babatunde Fashola. Minister of Power, Works and Housing
5. Ibe Kachikwu. Minister of State Petroleum Resources
6. Kemi Adeosun. Minister of Finance
7. Kayode Fayemi Minister of Steel and Solid Minerals

Also absent were:

1. Godwin Emefiele the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and,
2. Yewande Sadiku the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission.

The meeting was to start at 9am but started at 10am, when Sanusi arrived he had to wait in the Ambassador’s ( it is not known if the over 80 years old Ambassador was in the office or not, but by the report the investors were ‘waiting down there’.

The list of Nigerian government officials who were to be there to market Nigeria on the theme of ‘Nigeria Is Open For Business ‘ were the Vice President and Ministers.

And some of them were in Washington DC but at the time the Emir spoke to the journalist they were not there.

I quote Emir Sanusi:

“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 [hold] this forum in the Rwandan Embassy, l assure you the President Paul Kagame himself would be there telling people to come.”

“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”

“At the end of the day, this is the first point of contact of the Country. The investor hasn’t even come to Nigeria.

“What will be his experience in Abuja, so he says to himself if l am having this experience in Washington what will happen when l go to Abuja, when l go to Kano.?”

“How do l get to see the Governor? Will it take me 10 hours?”

The interview is worth reading but l have copied word for word the Emir’s reaction to the disgraceful failure and truancy of the government officials who went to Washington DC to tell and demonstrate to the investors of the United States of America why they will be mad and irresponsible with their investors’ money if they come to invest in Nigeria.

These people took our money bought themselves and whoever they favored and for whatever reason (personal and pleasure) first class tickets, had limousines pick them up at the airport, checked into the best hotel Washington DC has to offer, buy the most expensive shoes, suits, watches and phones and just don’t turn up to market Nigeria the very reason they went to Washington DC.

I can hear the anger and disappointment in the interview of the Emir and rightly so, he may have gone as the past Governor of CBN or as the Emir of Kano, but he was speaking for the suffering masses of Nigeria this government and the unqualified people in the government claim to be working for today and on whose behalf they want to come back in 2019.

If you take an agbada sewing tailor from Kano, a tie and die maker from Ibadan, a shoemaker from Aba, the young man cooking crude oil crudely in Rivers Creeks, etc., they would have been able to tell the American investors in the Nigeria Embassy in Washington DC why they should come and invest in their businesses yet the Nigeria Embassy organized a forum invited busy investors and kept them waiting for one hour, and when they got started their public system failed, these are the irresponsible, lazy free loading men and women President Buhari should have referred to when not answering the question that was posed to him on investment opportunities in the terrorized North East of Nigeria where since January innocent Nigerians are slaughtered daily by foreign herdsmen and lately the military is accused of participating or watching the killings.

These are the dishonorable, lazy, irresponsible men and women who left Nigeria lied to the people that they were going to tell investors why they should bring their money to Nigeria.

Any investor who brings their money to invest in Nigeria either stole that money, want to steal our money or are mad.

Why will anyone want to come and invest in a country where 60% of the population are 30 years and under, and these people sit around do nothing, have no education, and demand for free education, free housing, free healthcare, their claim to freebies is that Nigeria is an oil producing country.

Do we in Nigeria really think that the investors we are calling to come to Nigeria don’t know that Nigeria is the hub of the first and fourth deadliest terror groups in the world.

Do we think the investors will overlook Countries like Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda the diamond in the crown of Africa, and Ethiopia that are doing their best to make their environment attractive to investors, and come and invest in Nigeria where communities are razed to the ground by the army of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as they claimed that a soldier was killed there.

It is in this same Nigeria especially in the Niger Delta and South East were the military invades communities and kill extra judiciously and get away with it.

Which investor if he is sane will come and invest in Nigeria that the Federal Government can’t keep secured, where foreigners come into the Country armed with sophisticated and deadly weapons with their cattle in military uniform as narrated by survivors of these unabated attacks, passing through states in the North, go into states in the Middle Belt, and Southern Nigeria.

The youths have been presented abroad to investors as criminals, freeloaders not willing work, and the same government asks for help from the USA and the UK to fight terrorism what will the investor do, Invest, bring their own work force from their country and bring their security to secure their investment and National.

Nigeria is unable to feed herself, yet the minister of Agriculture refuses to talk to investors but is very eager to tell us he is importing grass for cattle, and that the killing of farmers by herdsmen will continue into 2019 because the herdsmen believe that the grass and water in the middle to the south of Nigeria is nutritious.

Why will investors come to Nigeria when Nigeria cannot give electricity to small businesses and citizens of Nigeria for months, how will the investors’ money work without electricity, which business can make profit without electricity?

Minister of power can’t evacuate and distribute power, how do you convince investors to come and invest in Nigeria?

The ministers knew they will fail that was why they did not show up, because the investors will ask them developmental, and governance questions they can never answer in a million years, as they lack the capacity to answer the questions, they must be afraid that the likes of Bill Gates will be there not the Nigerian scratch my back l scratch your back investors.

Nigeria exports all God given resources and raw materials especially crude oil of the Niger Delta people and region and imports petrol, diesel, and kerosene from the crude oil she sold at raw material price, and secretly pays fuel subsidy in billions of Naira monthly after riding into power on the song of ‘people paying fuel subsidy are thieves.’

If you are able to deceive Nigerians with lies and govern them with government of terror and fear, Why will the investor come and invest in Nigeria when you are too happy to sell him the raw material, and he can make his purchase price back and make profit on the heads of Nigerians by selling back to you what he has produced from what he bought for nothing.

Nigeria is open for business indeed!

At the end of it all the victims are Nigerians because they accept to be victims. If Nigerians refuse to be victims the oppressors and cabals will quietly disappear.

Watch all over Africa governments of lies, oppression, terror, and backwardness have all fallen this one too will fall when Nigerians are ready to say NO ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

If Nigerians are ready for business they will stop this government in 2019 by voting in new government of people they know will do what the people say or the people will bring them down.

Others have done it,

It is possible to remove a government we don’t want & put in place a government we want. It is up to us. The choice is ours.

Borrowing from Madiba it is impossible until it is done.

It is actually the same as with GOD NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE .

Annkio Briggs writes from Port Harcourt the Capital of Rivers State. She is an indigene of Rivers State, she is a Rights Advocate of Liberty, Equity, Justice, Development, Environment, Resources and Politics. She is known for her fearlessness to talk directly to power and people.