By Uche Mbah
Barely two days after he came back from Russia,President Buhari Thursday jetted out again to Saudi Arabia to attend a conference of the third edition of the Future Investment Initiative. Buhari is the most widely traveled President of Nigeria since independence.
The program is organized by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, PIF, and will end by Thursday.
He is expected to use the opportunity to sell the investment opportunities that abound in Nigeria. This, of course, has been the thrust of his diplomatic shuttles, though in most cases, after the initial hype, the gains of such diplomatic shuttle becomes subsumed in silence. The presidency, however, insists that capital inflow increased by $2 billion from 2018 to the first half of 2019-from $12billion to $14 billion-but did not say how much of this are loans. Reports of increased divestment from the Nigerian economy are rife, with foreign firms scared of increased economic volatility.
Part of their target is to lay pipeline from Ajaokuta to Kano via Katsina, and the revamping of the Oil and gas sector by Aramco, a Saudi Arabian firm that has shown interest in the sector. Nigeria appears to be moving away from her traditional diplomatic allies.
Perhaps this explains why besides the Minister of state for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, he is accompanied by three governors from the North-Aminu Masari from his home state, Katsina, Babangida Zulum of Borno, and Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffry Onyeama, is not on his entourage. Instead, he took the junior minister, Zubairu Dada. He also took both the head of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmad Abubakar, and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno with him-a move described in intelligence circles as “a pragmatic false step”.
He did not go with any member of his Economic Team.
The Presidency announced that he will also perform the lesser Hajj after the event.
