Encourage Investors To Invest In Nigeria Through Positive Reportage – Diasporans Urges Newsmen

By Samuel Luka, Bauchi

Nigerians in Diaspora Commission has appealed to the country’s media practitioners to stop demarketing Nigeria in the eyes of the international community in order not to scare investors.

The Secretary of the commission, Engineer Dr. Sule Yakubu Bassi who made the appeal while speaking to newsmen at the Government House Bauchi on Tuesday, blamed the press for telling bad stories about Nigeria.

Engr. Dr. Bassi who was at the government house Bauchi with his entourage on courtesy visit to Governor Bala Mohammed, pleaded with journalists to always portray Nigeria positively in their reportage in order to encourage investors to invest in the country’s economy.

“The Press, I must address you because sometimes we are the ones that demarket our own country, so we have to be positive about Nigeria”, he said.

Dr. Bassi further argued: “if you have one bad Nigerian doing one bad thing, I Dr. Bassi will give you one thousand Nigerians that are doing good things. So, the press, good news should be good news, bad news should be discouraged, we shouldn’t demarket Nigeria, that’s part of the compact of this sensitization and advocacy programme”.

“The investor is not investing in Lagos or Abuja, he is coming to invest in his state or his local government, that is where the natural resources are for him to put his investment and get returns”, he said.

Engr Bassi said they were at the Bauchi government house on a courtesy visit to the governor following the hosting of the first Diaspora sensitization and advocacy program for the Northeastern states of Nigeria by Bauchi state.

He said that the initiative was meant to advocate for Diasporans to invest in the development of the Northeast Region of the country that includes, Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, Gombe Taraba states.

Engr Bassi who explained that Nigeria has over 20 million of its citizens in the diaspora, consisting of the modern diaspora of over 18 million and the Historic African Diaspora who have the resources, said they have in the past five years, brought to Nigeria’s economy, over 90 billion dollars investment.

He said that the diasporan phenomena is a evolving one which should not be taken for granted, adding that, it is catalyzing development in Nigeria while contributing over six percent of the country’s GDP.

The Secretary of the Diaspora Commission called for investment in Agriculture, Education, mineral resources, culture and tourism which he noted as one of the competitive edge advantage Nigeria has.

“If you go globally, today there is no party that takes place anywhere without Nigerian music and dance been played, jollof rice in London as city jollof, Masa is there as African Kitchen in California, Agege bread is there in Canada and the US, taken by our diaspora and they are multi millionaires in dollars as of today”, he disclosed.

“All we are saying is that, while they are out there, they should come and invest at home and help to catalyze development and they should not forget home”, Engineer Bassi stated.

He said that the commission has already developed a national diaspora policy for Nigeria and is sensitizing both the federal and state governments to engage with the diaspora, empower them.

“They should know that despite the few challenges, the Polish people are investing in Nigeria, Chinese are doing same, so why not Nigerians who are in the diaspora? We have very high rate of returns on investment in Nigeria more than anywhere in the world. Anything you invest in Nigeria, I can assure you, you will have forty percent return, but in other developed world the return is two to three percent”, he said.