- Says Nigerians In US Need Not Fear
- •We Must Make Nigeria Investment-Friendly
Ambassador Joe Keshi is a former Consul-General of the Nigerian Mission in the US; Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Coordinator; National Volunteer Service that pioneered the Nigeria Diaspora policy.
After years of Diplomatic service, Keshi was drafted into the corporate world at the highest levels when the Pan-African lender, United Bank for Africa appointed him as a Non-Executive Director in 2010, Vice-chairman 1st of January 2011 and later Chairman of its board at the close of 2013.
Keshi was the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa Plc. till August 2014 and is currently a Director/Vice Chairman of the Bank.
He is also the Chairman of Afrigrowth Foundation and Director-General of the BRACED Commission.
As a career diplomat, Keshi served in a number of countries in his 35-year service in the Nigerian Civil service, including the United States of America where he worked for five years as Nigeria’s Consul-General in Atlanta. He is a regular commentator on international and domestic affairs in the print and electronic media.
He is an alumnus of both the John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Harvard Business School. Keshi holds a B.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; M.A. in Administration and Development from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands and Post Graduate Diploma in International Relations and Diplomacy from Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, Nigeria. He is a recipient of many national and international honours, including the Officer of the Order Of the Niger (OON). In a chat with The New Diplomat’s Associate Editor, Laolu Adeyemi, Keshi bares his mind on the implications of Trump’s victory on the Nigerian Economy; making the nation an investment haven, the dwindling forex, among other issues. Excerpts.
How would you describe the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential polls?
Donald Trump’s victory was not totally unexpected. But the surprise remains that a man with so many negative characteristics could defy all odds, predictions and make it to the most powerful job in the world. So many things played in his favour and he capitalized on them. Many years ago, l read a book or an article with the title, “The Road To The White House is Through The Rural Areas” and that has proven to be the Truth. He tapped into the anger of working class white Americans who felt left behind by an economy that has impoverished them and left them uncertain of the future and that of their families. The same people were also not happy with how far American liberalism has gone, including electing a Black man to the White House and allowing so many immigrants into the United States many of whom are culturally and religiously different from Americans. They also hated the legalization of abortion and homosexuality. W
hen you take into consideration the cries,” We need to take back our country” you will also appreciate that race was undeniably part of what contributed to his victory. With the benefit of hindsight, the Clinton campaign perhaps thought that the threat of the anger of white voters could be counter-balanced by securing the Obama coalition. The problem with that too was that many in that coalition did not feel they benefitted much from the Obama years irrespective of the fact that the economy is in a better shape than what he inherited and with Clinton’s weak campaign and uninspiring message, the die was cast. Three other factors in my view that collectively and significantly contributed to his victory included, the sad, unfortunate but deliberate intrusion of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation, FBI, director in the election which virtually stopped Hilary Clinton’s momentum and certainly reminded voters of her negatives. That singular action can be compared to a referee in a football match awarding a penalty with less than two minutes to the end of a match. There was also, as it is emerging that America is not ready yet for a women president.
Finally and perhaps most interesting is the role played by the media. Trump consistently complained of media bias. But the truth is that he got more media exposure than his opponent and he manipulated the media effectively, especially in the last days of the campaign. From day one, every nasty or ugly thing said by Trump not only made the headlines but occupied the headlines for days and weeks and during the primaries, the media virtually gave him a free ride. If you do a comparison, you will find out that the poor lady was far more scrutinized by the media.
Check out how she was treated over her emails, her speeches, especially to Goldman Sachs and the Clinton Foundation with how the media treated Trump over his taxes, his foundation, Trump university, his sexual behaviours and his businesses. You will see and appreciate the point l am making. Against this backdrop, it’s unfortunate that we have a man like Donald Trump occupy the presidency of the United States but that’s democracy in its imperfection. Frankly, with this election, the greatest democracy on the face of the earth has lost the moral authority to dictate to us on what should or should be during elections. Who will take any American envoy serious if they show up anywhere to lecture anybody on decent behaviour during elections, when they have just conducted the most hateful elections in American history. Today, the election of Donald Trump has left America a fractured nation, divided along ethnic and religious lines, of haves and have nots. A land of hope that in many ways has inspired generations is fast disappearing and perhaps, it is the beginning of the end for the empire.
What may be the implications of Trump’s emergence for the global economy?
I am not sure the global economy will change as such. I doubt also if America that has championed, promoted and benefitted immensely from globalization can stop or reverse the process; so we have to wait and see. One thing l am very confident of is that the majesty, the awesome nature and responsibility of the presidency will moderate President Trump. As he is briefed on a number of issues, the realities of American global leadership and responsibilities would also set in. We have to wait and see, especially as he campaigned on very limited agenda.
Should Trump carry out his threat to deport about 3million migrants, what should be Nigeria’s reaction and what should Nigerians in the Diaspora do?
If that happens, there is nothing we can do; but l do not think that will be his priority. His immediate efforts maybe to deport those Hispanics who are illegally in the US and who have criminal records. This is what Obama did throughout his presidency and almost close to 3million people were deported. On the other hand, rather than think of how to retaliate, we should focus on making Nigeria a better place for all its citizens. This will certainly reduce, if not stop, those wishing to migrate to other countries. The Nigerian Diaspora have nothing to fear, especially those who are gainfully employed.
Should America turn her back to us, where do we go from there?
Prepare ourselves to properly engage the new team in Washington. We should not go cap-in –hand begging for help. Rather, we but must focus on trade and investment which will be more beneficial to Nigeria. In any engagement, we should play down our negatives and highlight the attractiveness of this country in terms of investment, the industry, smartness and resilience of its people. This is why it is important that we try to change the narratives of our country. I have said in some other interviews that we cannot go abroad looking for investors and also talking about how corrupt this country is. Nigeria is not the most corrupt country in the world, so when we fight corruption, we should do the talking internally, and when we go abroad, we talk about things that would attract people to Nigeria not de-market the country. Our strengthen in any engagement with the world comes from projecting the opportunities and advantages we have and talking about the people who are smart, industrious and very proud of their cultural heritage not running ourselves down.
Above all, we should make our country conducive for investment.
How do we go about making Nigeria an investment-friendly haven?
The best way to make Nigeria investment-friendly is to ensure we put in place all what will attract investors to Nigeria. The regulatory environment should be right and flexible; infrastructure should also be put in place; we should have the human capital to manage businesses and the bureaucracy must be kind and friendly to investors.
A situation where business operators and prospective investors encounter so many obstacles is certainly not an environment that would attract business.
Part of ways to creating that environment is for government to find a way of partnering with the private sectors with a view to improving infrastructure. This is where I have always clamoured for government to open up the economy further and bring in private sector players in almost all the sectors of the Nigerian economy.
If for instance we decide to concession all federal roads linking all the states of this federation; that would have saved Nigerian government a colossal amount of money that can now be reinvested into education and health. What this means is that we are going to have world-class roads in this country and we would completely forget the whole story of bad roads and road deficit within two to five years.
If we can go further and complete the privatisation of the power sector, it will help the nation solve the problems in the sector. It is now clear that government cannot manage the enormous challenges in the sector. We just have to replicate what has been done in the financial sector, telecoms sectors there. We can let that go.
Even in the oil sector, it has taken us almost a lifetime to get our PIB bill when it took Ghana less than three years to pass. We are yet to pass the bill till now.
These are parts of bureaucratic delays that discourage investors from coming to this country. If we can remove all these things and let government concentrate on education, social welfare and health. The point is let us open up the nation’s economy for investors to come in, but we must have investment-friendly laws.
Considering your years in the banking sector, what is your evaluation of the Nigerian banking industry today?
The banking sector in Nigeria is fairly strong. Look at how the government pulled down all the money in the banking sector through TIC/ TSA. And we can see how the recession and some of the policies have affected the aviation industry and some companies are collapsing. If our banks are not strong enough, it would have forced them to collapse when the government suddenly pulled out huge amounts of money from the banking sector.
These are parts of what investors don’t like. Investors like certainty and dislike uncertainly. Government cannot continue to have policy reversals which send false signals to investors. The consequence of this is what we are seeing in the country as many businesses have been folding up. I am not saying TSA is not good. But there could have been a better way of implementing it. It was done in a hurry. Whereas it should have been done gradually in such a way that will not affect the economy. Whether we like to admit it or not, the way the TSA was implemented, contributed to what is being felt in the recession.
This also highlights the fact that investors like certainty and not uncertainty and we can see what is going on on the American situation. Why is the whole world panicking about the election of Donald Trump? The world is panicking because of so many negative things he said during the elections. He threatened to start a trade war with China, to reseal Naftat; saying he is not going to sign the TAC. All these uncertainty threatens business. The American stock exchange fell at some point and later rose but now is down again because of the way Trump is managing the transition. Foreign investors plan ahead before they invest.
We also need to address the way we do things with a sense of urgency and introduction of efficiency into our system. This will help us a lot in addressing some issues relating to lackadaisical attitude of some bureaucracies. It is in almost all the sectors of our economy and that’s why it takes us a long time to get passport, licence, voting cards and so many other things.
Whereas technology has changed the way things are done in some other climes.
That enabled US citizens to register two weeks to the voting day and they were able to vote. People even registered on the same day they voted. But the case is different in Nigeria. It is difficult to get your voting card even after you have registered two years ahead. Distribution is another challenge because it didn’t get to so many people. Some of the voting cards are still there in INEC office. It is not encouraging, not efficient and not sustainable. Technology has changed so many things and we need to embrace the technology to make this nation work.
The bottom line is that we need to make all our systems work properly before we can attract investors. Even when power, educational, health sectors work. When those things work properly nobody would want to leave the country. But when things are like this, many people would want to leave.
What is happening to the nation’s forex?
The shortest answer is that we are importing more than we are exporting. It is when we export that we earn forex and for us to increase forex, we must increase productivity in the country. Unfortunately, we are not doing enough in terms of productivity. Everybody wants forex but nobody is talking about productivity which is the other side of forex. If we create industry and our industries are able to satisfy the local demand and export. If our agricultural produce are getting into the international market, we would earn more forex.
But in a case where we only have oil and the price has gone down which made us to get little; we have a problem with foreign exchange. There is no magic about it. If we want more forex, we‘ve got to increase productivity. But unfortunately we are not concentrating on productivity.
How do we get out of the current recession?
The way forward is to diversify the Nigerian economy which government is trying to do. We have been talking about how we want to diversify the economy for over 40 years and we have not done anything. The other day, Dr Philip Asiodu was telling us the laid plan in 1975 and where they laid down the train work to diversify the economy. But it was jettisoned by successive governments. We have had so many plans thereafter which were again jettisoned by the successive government because we are dependent on oil. Now there is no oil, we have to go back to the diversification plan and execute the good things about them. We need focus on agriculture, culture and tourism, and solid minerals which would in turn help us improve on our education, health and every other sector. Once food is surplus, we have good health system and a functional educational sector, people will be happy and there will be no plan to fly out of the country.
