By Ishaya Ibrahim
It will take the grace of God to convince foreign investors to trust Nigerian citizens, particularly highly political exposed ones. This is one of the dangers of bad politics.
Part of the measures the All Progressive Congress (APC) government may have taken of late is to forward the names of some politicians, mainly those in the opposition to some embassies asking that they be denied entry into such places. The European and American countries are the most affected.
At the last count, 176 of such names are said to be in the bad books of the foreign embassies, particularly the United States of America.
It took the acquittal of former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa by a Sokoto State High Court of all corruption charges for TheNiche to realise the damage his name that was placed with the US embassy caused him prior the ruling.
To Bafarawa’s advantage, the recent court ruling has more international significance as he can now regain his damaged image and integrity before the US embassy while his case was in progress nearly eight years ago.
Unlike Nigerians whose names are still sleeping in the office of the US and European countries’ embassies, Bafarawa could now protest the inclusion of his among 176 persons which Nigeria’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, allegedly sent to the United States embassy as corrupt not long ago.
TheNiche learnt that the US embassy had afterward, placed them on visa restriction and personalities not to be touched even with long poles.
Bafarawa had himself been denied the visa on the ground that the Nigerian government named him among the 176 corrupt persons, this newspaper gathered during the week.
He told TheNiche in a chat after the court ruling on his acquittal that Malami personally drew up the list. He intends to “forward the court judgement to the US embassy” as quickly as possible for their information.”
It is believed that in the list were names of people the government considered a threat to the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Bafarawa said when he got to the US embassy for the said visa interview, the embassy officials told him that they could not allow him into the US because the Nigerian government said he had a criminal case, and invariably was “corrupt”.
“It was a piece of information that gave me great concern because I know I was innocent of the charges brought against me,” he told TheNiche.
He said this action by the Attorney General, has taken a huge toll on his business interest and also robbed off on his national and international goodwill.
Profiling Nigerian politicians to the US as corrupt would not only hurt the individuals but investment inflow into Nigeria, especially foreign direct investment (FDI), that is, tangible investments which companies abroad make in another country.
Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) released on July 1, shows that FDI into Nigeria in the first quarter of 2018 has dropped by 16 per cent to about $808.56 million from $959.5 million.
Portfolio investment, which is termed hot money, increased to $5.14 billion during the same period, from $3.8 billion in the previous quarter in 2017.
Increase in portfolio investment is rarely celebrated because it could leave the country at the same speed it came.