The federal government and commercial banks in the country have turned their attention to Nigerians living overseas, especially America and Europe, in a desperate bid to shore up their dwindling foreign exchange inflow.
The Nigerian government is reportedly targeting the estimated 15 to 18 million citizens who live overseas in this regard.
According to Bloomberg, the Debt Management Office is raising a $300 million diaspora bond, while the finance ministry is meeting investors in London and the U.S. this week to promote the sale of a 15-year Eurobond, the longest maturity yet.
The purpose is to fund this year’s record 7.3-trillion-naira ($23 billion) budget. A decline in oil income and the exit of foreign investors have created dollar shortages, contributing to the nation’s worst downturn in more than two decades.
Aside the government, banks too have joined in the scramble for the diaspora market with Sterling Bank leading the current charge.
Bloomberg reported that a top manager with the bank, Tunji Adeyemi, recently travelled to Britain seeking to persuade Nigerians living there to deposit their pounds in his bank’s vaults.
Adeyemi, who is the head of the bank’s newly-formed diaspora services programme, told Bloomberg that his visit to Glasgow was just one stop in Sterling Bank’s push to get Nigerians abroad to open 5,000 new accounts back home this year.
The visit, late last year, which also took Adeyemi to Manchester and Belfast, winning more than 500 new accounts, is intended to boost foreign-currency revenue amid a shortage that has crippled everyone from manufacturers to airlines.
“We are ready to go all out,” said Adeyemi, who’s planning another multi-city trip, probably to Chicago and Atlanta, by April. “It’s not about having a physical branch in the U.K. It’s about your drive and aggressiveness.”
Courtesy: George Oshodi/Bloomberg
The Nigerian diaspora officially sends about $20 billion home annually, the world’s fifth-largest receiver, according to World Bank data. Based on a Sterling Bank study, remittances through informal channels may equal that amount.
“Perhaps one of the reasons we have not collapsed is because of the diaspora’s support,” the report quoted Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Muhammadu Buhari’s adviser on diaspora affairs, as saying.
Data has also shown that while investment and equities slump, remittances were relatively stable as of last year.
Dabiri-Erewa’s team has drafted a policy that would commit the government to help reduce remittance fees and enable diaspora investment. And by advocating for a law that grants Nigerians abroad the right to vote, the former lawmaker hopes emigrants will have one more reason to give back.
Also, Nigerians received 60 percent of the remittances sent to sub-Saharan Africa in 2015, says the World Bank, estimating that remittances to the region grew 3.4 percent in 2016.
Nigerian banks are also offering to help diaspora customers navigate the country’s cutthroat real estate market, as part of their value-added services. A depositor abroad could use the bank’ services to find reliable developers, finance and purchase a house in Nigeria, for instance.
Nigerians living abroad are not going to send their money home if they don’t think they will get a fair deal, Abubakar Suleiman, chief financial officer at Sterling Bank, told Bloomberg.
“They may have some element of nationality and compassion for the country,” he said. “At the end of the day, if the economics are not right, it’s very difficult to get them to make an investment.”
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I can’t believe this is happening in Nigeria, a country with the largest economy in Africa under the so called most corrupt civilian government few years ago, is now practically a begger, . Where are the so called technocrats in APC? Shame! Shame!! Shame!!!