Where’s Enelamah’s US $20 billion?

Arianna Huffington, the co founder of Huffington Post, one of the biggest global digital media successes said recently “we all have the right to our own opinions but not our own set of facts”. This statement provides the context for me to assess the statement recently and widely credited to Dr Okechukwu Enelamah, the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment.

Before the assessment, permit me to provide the necessary introduction, especially for those that did not see the stories. The Sun Newspaper version said, “We reached US $20 billion investments in 12 months”. ThisDay reported “Enalamah claims Nigeria recorded over US $20 billion investment inflows in one year”, while The Nation reported “Fed Govt. records over $20 bn FDI in one year”.

The essence of the story in virtually all the papers also read like this: According to Enelamah, “there is a $20 billion or more infrastructure project with the China EXIM Bank. It’s been signed and it’s now implemented around railways and related infrastructure.“There is agreement with General Electric, which is about $2 billion they have committed in the last one year.

“There are the private sector investments like that of Chellarams, which sold a major part of their business to Kellogg’s of the United States. That deal may be a $400 million. There was a deal that was done by Chi with Coca Cola. That deal is also worth hundreds of millions of dollars.” Other investments that have come into the country in the life of this administration, he added, included that of BUA, which “sold something to an international player for a substantial sum”.

I have three observations and I will take them one after the other.

First, I have serious reservations with the way and manner in which the numbers were used. There was serious undertone of uncertainty and lack of knowledge of the specific numbers mentioned by Minister, as quoted by the press. I do not think there is anything about US $ 2 billion. In the quotes, whether it was the claim that the Chinese are investing over US $20 billion, or the investment by General Electric, and even the investment by Coca Cola, there was a disturbing sense that the Minister was not sure of his numbers or deliberately muddled them up. Unwittingly, the Minister gave room for serious doubts, and showed that he does not believe those numbers. In addition, the reports were scant on details, perhaps consciously and deliberately. After all, the devil is always in the details.

My second observation is the manner in which the press reported the story. I spoke to one of those that attended. Apparently, the Minister had invited journalists to intimate them of the achievements / developments of his Ministry in the last one year. However, I learnt that the reporters did not have the opportunity to interrogate the numbers on the investments mentioned by Dr. Enelamah.

The headline chorus suggests that all the reporters heard the Minister correctly. And if they did not, there is no indication anywhere that the Minister, nor his aides, had called the media to set the record straight. The headlines suggest that all the reporters could not have got the statement wrong. It is thus clear that none of the reporters believed the story, and thus most relied on “claims by the Minister”. Indeed, the sentiment of those at the press conference and the public since the release of the story is best captured by the opening statement of the ThisDay piece, which reads “in a remark certain to befuddle Nigerians”. It certainly befuddled.

Now to my third and final observation. In February this year, the Minister was quoted as saying his plan was to double the country’s long-term foreign investment to at least US $10 billion annually. And the same Minister, just 10 months after, says the country has recorded over US $20 billion. Haba! It thus mean that between February and November, not only has Nigeria got US $10 billion as investment, it has realised US $20 billion record investment.

It is not realistic that investment, whether flows or in materials, has quadrupled in just a year as the Minister would want us to believe. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) between January and October was US $745 million. When other forms of capital importation like foreign portfolio flows (FPI) and loans are included, it was US $4.8 billion. Obviously, our data, which is the most important, does not bear them out.

Following this, I will be very interested in knowing any new railway and related investment made by the Chinese in the last one year, and specifically by the Chinese EXIM bank. Indeed, the Chinese EXIM Bank does not directly provide infrastructure investment but provides facilities for them. Could the Minster be referring to Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and not concrete investments? But the Minister said these investment deals have been signed and are being implemented. At best, the stories were grossly misleading.

In conclusion, these stories follow the pattern of government officials declaring ostentatious figures that have no bearing on reality. And the leading candidate must be the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, who has announced over US $70 billion investments in oil and gas industry this year alone. It is like watching the Village Headmaster. Meanwhile, these figures only appear in Nigerian dailies and are only celebrated in Nigeria and by Nigerian officials. If these deals are two party agreements, I just wonder why they are not celebrated in China, India etc. I thank you.

Ogho Okiti