Buhari, PDP disagree over sectors US investment in Nigeria should focus on

President Muhammadu Buhari and the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday disagreed over how the president should woo investors from the United States of America into Nigeria.

The president who is on a three-day visit to the USA welcomed increased US investment in the Nigerian economy, especially in the non-oil sector.

But the PDP contends that the president did wrong, and should instead have tried to convince the US to continue to buy the country’s oil, which is its economic mainstay.

PDP while noting that the volume of crude purchased by the US from Nigeria in recent times had declined, stated that the Buhari visit would have been a good opportunity to convince that country to renew its interest in Nigeria’s crude oil.
The PDP in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in reaction to Buhari’s meeting with Trump in Washington DC on Monday, said “It was alarming that President Buhari buckled in bilateral negotiation and failed to address the issue of the drop in the US purchase of our crude oil, which is the main stay of our economy.

However, Buhari told his hosts, that “our aim is to diversify our own economy by focusing on agriculture and food security; power and infrastructure. We have cut the importation of rice by about 90% thereby saving a significant amount of money”.

Speaking at a working lunch during the visit, Buhari said that “Economic relations between Nigeria and the United States are anchored on three major instruments, namely: the Bi-National Commission, Trade and Investment Framework Agreement and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

“The Bi-National Commission in particular, comprising bilateral political, economic, developmental and humanitarian partnership, is a basic economic framework for engagement between our two countries.

“Nigeria’s trade volume with the United States stood at six point zero-seven billion United States Dollars according to 2016 statistics and comprised four point one-seven-six billion united States dollars worth of Nigerian exports to the US and one point eight-nine-four billion United States Dollars US exports to Nigeria. We should work to increase these figures substantially and to make balance of trade more even”.

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Buhari while thanking the US for it’s cooperation in efforts to recover stolen funds from Nigeria stashed in different parts of the world, said the “two governments have put the machinery in place for their respective Attorneys-General to collaborate in ensuring the return to Nigeria of over five hundred million United States Dollars ($500) of looted funds siphoned away in banks around the world.

“In this connection, we congratulate the US government on launching a Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, which was spearheaded by the US Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering. We hope that we can continue to count on your support in our efforts to recover our money”.

He also noted, that “Nigeria’s trade volume with the United States stood at $6.07 billion according to 2016 statistics and comprised $4.176 billion worth of Nigerian exports to the US and $1.894 billion US exports to Nigeria. We urged greater effort to increase these figures substantially”.

 

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