Ironically, this is happening at a time that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s every trip outside the country is deliberately used to woo foreign investors. The latest of such trips being the one to the Netherlands, from where, as usual, the President and his ministers have been telling Nigerians about billions of dollars of investments that would soon flow from the outing.
While this latest gambit was playing out, PZ Cussons, on April 24, said it had begun a strategic review of its African businesses to exit Africa, mainly due to economic challenges in Nigeria. The company said its sales in Nigeria plunged by almost 50 per cent due to the Naira devaluation and inflation.
Examples of major companies in Nigeria, with their reported Forex losses include MTN Nigeria ; Nestle Nigeria ; Cadbury Nigeria ; Dangote Sugar ; Dangote Cement ; Nigerian Breweries ; BUA Foods ; Intercontinental Breweries ; BUA Cement and Lafarge Cement . All these have translated to continued shrinking of the Nigerian economy in the past ten years—a situation the International Monetary Fund vividly showed in a recent publication. Specifically, the IMF said that Nigeria now ranks the fourth largest economy in Africa, as against being the largest economy on the continent since 2013.
Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party , Dr Adolphus Wabara, has urged President Bola Tinubu to caution Minister of the Federal Capital Territory , Nyesom Wike, over the recent disturbing developments in Rivers State.