The Nation Newspaper

Tag: roadshow

  • Firm plans London property roadshow

    To showcase the potential in  real estate business in Lagos State, VFN Projects plans to stage a property roadshow, London4Lagos 2017,     in London, United Kingdom (UK) between April 27 and 29.

    The event tagged: “The property road show for Nigerians in Diasporas” will bring proven Lagos-based developers in contact with over 3,000+ real estate investors in the United Kingdom. There is a publicity in the UK being targeted at able Nigerians.

    According to a statement by the director, VFN Projects, Mr Abayomi Oni-Williams, in 2015, Nigerians in diaspora remitted the sum of $21 billion back home. Therefore, he said, Lagos, as the biggest commercial hub in the country, must be put in a vantage position to receive a higher percentage of these remittances.

    This, he said, can be accomplished through the real estate sector which at this point is slowing down drastically due to current macro-economic environment caused gendered by the economic recession.

    “It is also our belief that there is the need to further open up and bring closer the Lagos real estate sector to Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) for active participation. Interested property developers will be brought closer to potential buyers and vice versa, with the state government at the centre to give confidence to investors,” he said.

    Williams said the value of naira has plummeted in the past one year such that the purchasing powers of the Diasporas have risen astronomically. This means that Nigerians living in the UK, US, Canada, Europe and other places, can now buy properties in Nigeria with about one-third of what they needed only a few years ago.

    He added that Nigerians in the Diasporas have suddenly become the target because of the value of their adopted home currency, which has gained more value when compared to the naira because of its devaluation. For instance, with about £16,000, a Nigerian living in UK can conveniently buy up a N10 million flat in Lagos, which would not buy him a flat in the European country.

    “The London4Lagos 2017 property roadshow is conceived to leverage on this opportunity in a formal and a structured way and with emphasis on Lagos State as the best destination for real estate investment in the country,” he said.

  • Fed Govt begins bond roadshow

    Nigeria will soon meet investors before a Eurobond sale and plans to apply for a $1 billion loan from the World Bank once lawmakers approve this year’s budget, Finance Minister Mrs Kemi Adeosun has said.

    “We are about to embark on the roadshow” for the dollar bond, Adeosun said by phone from the capital, Abuja, yesterday, without giving more details. She and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo previously said they want to raise $1 billion in what would be Nigeria’s first Eurobond since 2013.

    The government hired Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered Bank Plc to organise the roadshow in the U.S. and London from today according to a person familiar with the matter. The notes and the World Bank loan will help plug a fiscal deficit forecast by the government to be N2.36 trillion ($7.5 billion) this year, Adeosun said separately to reporters.

    President Muhammadu Buhari presented a record N7.3 trillion spending plan to lawmakers in December in a bid to stimulate an economy experiencing its worst downturn in more than two decades because oil prices have been crashing since 2014 and investors fleeing the country. Gross domestic product (GDP) probably shrank 1.5 per cent last year, marking the first full-year recession since 1991, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    While Nigeria sought about $4.5 billion of external funding last year, it only managed to borrow $600 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB), which will be used for power generation, roads, railways and ports. The government has struggled to obtain more financing as foreign investors and the IMF have criticised its currency policies, which they say have left the naira overvalued and led to a severe shortage of the foreign-exchange businesses need to import raw materials and equipment.

    The naira trades around 315 per dollar on the official interbank market and fell to a record 500 on the black market this week as the dollar scarcity worsens.

    The yield on Nigeria’s $500 million Eurobond due in July 2023 snapped six days of increases to decline by 1 basis point, to 6.89 per cent, by 8:41 a.m. in London.

  • Dubai on roadshow to woo tourists

    Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is one of the favourite destinations for Nigerian travellers. It is a top leisure destination for both leisure and business vacations for many Nigerians. This is attested to by the volume of flights from Nigeria that terminates in the city either directly or indirectly.

    In recognition of this, the Dubai Tourism bureau is making efforts to woo Nigerian travellers and carve greater share of the Nigeria’s international travel market. The tourism bureau was in the country last year for the Akwaaba tourism fair.

    Based on the success of the first foray in the Nigerian market at the fair, the bureau embarked on a roadshow to three key cities in Nigeria to introduce to those in the travel trade and the public some of the products and services Dubai has for Nigerian tourists.

    The team from the Dubai Tourism bureau was led by Stella Obinwa, the head of Dubai Tourism, Africa Region.

    She spoke on why Dubai is attracted to the Nigerian market. She said: “Nigeria is such a wonderful market for Dubai that I would be here over and over again. We will do as much as we can to support the travel trade and the consumers to visit Dubai.”

    Asked to describe the experience of her bureau in Nigeria so far, Obinwa confirmed that the roadshow was a follow-up to the success of Dubai Tourism’s participation in 2015 Akwaaba.

    “ I have not heard of any unsuccessful part of whatever we’ve done in Nigeria in the past six or seven months. Akwaaba was very successful for us. It was Dubai Tourism’s first time there, and for our first time, we won this International Stand Award.

    “ Our station was the most active. We actually came with about five companies for that trip, and based on the experience, we decided to do the roadshow. For the roadshow, we brought in about 24 different brands and between now and the next seven hours, all the representatives of those brands will be here.

    “We are doing three cities, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja. Our intention is not to just keep on informing you about Dubai. We want to inform the broader public, which means touching the East, North,  South and  West. Hopefully, Abuja would cover all of the North for us, Port Harcourt would cover all of the East and South South and Lagos covers the West.

    “The format is a truly very informative roadshow. Each of these brands will be given a time slot to do a full-blown presentation of what they have to offer in Dubai, specifically what they have to offer to Nigerians. Then, we would all get to network and mingle. The invited guests for the roadshow have one-on-one chance with each of those representatives that come from Dubai to really cement the relationship and form a better plan of what they want to sell in Nigeria and how those Dubai companies can help them. So, we believe that we are making the environment to grow business for people of two different countries, Nigerians and Emiratis.”

    Obinwa said it was based on the importance Dubai attaches to the Nigerian market that top tourism and hospitality groups in Dubai were part of the show.

    “ We have a captain from the Dubai Emigration Service on this trip. He will start the presentation to explain the whole visa process and he will also explain the different kinds of visa that Dubai has to offer. Even in my short conversation with him, he told me about different kinds of visa that I wasn’t even aware of. I think it is going to be fabulous  information. That is on the government side. Then, we are bringing in Dubai parks that are opening this summer.

    “It will take you at least a whole week to visit the whole parks. We brought in  Starwood Hotels and  Emaar Hotels.We are bringing in Amani , Buri Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. We also have a few destination management companies, Emirates Holidays, Emirate Airlines and Damac Properties. They are comparable to Emaar.

    “We tried to bring properties or activities that we know will interest an average African, in particular the  Nigerian.

    “In everything we are doing in African market, we are starting with Nigeria because Nigeria gives us our biggest volume, but we are also focusing on East and South Africa as well because you are here, you are not seeing what we are doing.

    “ It was in South Africa, in the beginning of April, that we announced that we are going to do a FAM trip for 500 African agents and we would pull all those agents from all over Africa, 10 different countries to be exact and we will pay for them for five days and five nights to explore Dubai.

    “ You know it is easy to sell what you have seen and touched, and it is not just the best performing travel agents. We keep only focusing on the best performers; we will only have a limited market.

    “We are also interested in those that have paid attention to Dubai, but need that little bit of more information to help them grow their business. The only way we can grow this market is to increase our touch point and not just focus on five or six touch points,”she said.

    She also talked about the bureau’s experience  in the World Travel Market (WTM).

    “We also won an award there. WTM Africa is in its third year and in the first year, quite a few companies participated, and they were comparing to other international travelling exhibitions in London and Berlin.

    “The second year, a lot of companies didn’t participate. When I joined Dubai Tourism, I said Africa could not be compared to other continents. Africa is an emerging continent, an emerging market. We have to give it time to grow, so we have to be in that South Africa WTM to show that we are committed.

    “It was so well done, and one thing we always ask our Dubai participants is: do you want us to do this again next year?  They all signed up for next year even though it is 12 months away, “she said.

    “The three-city roadshow was held in Lagos- Federal Palace Hotel, then it moved to Port Harcourt-Hotel Presidential and then Abuja Sheraton. It was the same format every where.

    “In Lagos we invited over 180 guests, in Port Harcourt about 100 and in Abuja about 150. Airlines and National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) gave us a list of travel agencies,”she said.

  • U.S. plans investor roadshow for Africa to boost investment

    The United States (US) will launch an African investor roadshow later this year to connect entrepreneurs with potential U.S. investors. This is part of a push for increased trade with the continent, the U.S. commerce secretary said on last Friday.

    Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, which President Barack Obama  addressed on Saturday, Penny Pritzker said the U S was seeking to address the main concern raised by African entrepreneurs’ limited access to foreign capital.

    “The president and our department are very focused on how to improve trade and investment between Africa and the United States. It’s really top of our mind. And what we’ve found is that there is an enormous amount of entrepreneurial activity happening here,” Pritzker told Reuters.

    “It’s a really important effort because everybody talks about access to capital here… We listened to the customer.”

    The roadshow will be launched in New York in September during the annual meeting of world leaders at the United Nations. In 2016, potential investors will travel to African countries, she said, adding that the specifics have yet been set.

    Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta among others have been invited to participate, Pritzker said.

    A wide array of African companies have started up in recent years to meet the demands of the continent’s fast-growing economy and to add value to the raw goods it has traditionally shipped abroad.

    But access to capital is a common complaint, in part because commercial banks require very high interest rates.

    The Nairobi summit and the African Leaders Summit held in Washington last August, were important showcases for the continent’s significant business potential, and were helping to counter negative perceptions of African business, Pritzker said.

  • Okupe’s roadshow

    It was a suggestive moment. Power employed the appeal of poetry in a move to seduce the fraternity of the pen. The clever play on words came at the end of a high-profile visit by Dr. Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, to the corporate headquarters of The Nation at Matori, Lagos. A member of his team, Dr. Olusanya Awosan, Special Assistant to the President on Public Relations, was asked to close the meeting with senior journalists working for the newspaper. He came up with creative lines inspired by his Public Relations background. “This nation is ours. Let us use The Nation to work for our nation,” he said. These words, which formed the high point of his brief parting speech, drew a wave of laughter from the impressed audience in the company’s board room.

    It brought about a light-hearted finish to an encounter that often featured intense passions and contentions. From the start, Okupe admitted he had entertained the view that the newspaper was “hostile”, basing his opinion on the identity of its publisher. However, he also confessed that the paper had proved him wrong by its “professionalism” even in its coverage of the presidency, which is of a dissimilar political complexion.

    Dressed in white native attire, with a black cap and brown shoes, the fleshy physician who is better known as a politician spoke smoothly. He was on familiar turf, having served in a similar capacity in the early years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. His comeback and responsibility in the current administration has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that Jonathan needed a more aggressive voice and greater bite in the handling of the government’s public communications. But, interestingly, the man didn’t growl at anyone on his visit. Rather, he was a picture of civility, and went to great lengths to explain and elaborate on issues that arose.

    Perhaps predictably, he defended his boss, arguing that the president was misunderstood and unfairly characterized as “clueless.” His adjectives for Jonathan were: “human,” “sensible,” “intelligent.” However, he offered no convincing proof of Jonathan’s brilliance. The only premise that he supplied for his assessment was that whenever he had an official discussion with Jonathan, the president was usually able to recollect the minutest details of their previous interaction. Jonathan had a patriotic love for the country, Okupe testified.

    Bad press was a difficult challenge to the administration, he declared, and told the fascinating story of how even his own 87-year-old mother had drawn his attention to the government’s reported poor performance. He was asked: Weren’t the so-called negative media reports faithful in their recreation of reality? Can it be truly said that the government was actually performing to public expectation?

    Okupe called for understanding, and argued that as the head of a two-year-old administration, Jonathan had done well enough and only required more time to further show the stuff he was made of. To back his claims, he dwelled on an alleged revolution in agriculture and electricity supply. The interviewers rejected the rosy picture he painted. The divergence put a question mark on the integrity of information from government sources. Was the media expected to parrot official statements without professional mediation? Evidently, there should be a meeting point between the reported and the reporter.

    Governmental openness isn’t quite as it should be, Okupe conceded. However, seeking an excuse, he blamed this democratic aberrancy on long years of military rule and argued that it would take some time before official secretiveness became a thing of the past. He broke the welcome news that, as a step toward greater directness, his unit planned to launch a regular information forum for public enlightenment.

    The questions he had to tackle showed a glaring disconnect between public opinion and governmental activities. The range of issues raised included the status of First Lady Patience Jonathan who was controversially promoted to the position of permanent secretary in Bayelsa State; the government’s contentious consideration of amnesty for the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram; Jonathan’s perceived 2015 presidential ambition; the divisive state pardon granted Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State convicted of high-scale corruption; and the 2012 US report on human rights abuses that alleged the existence of 6,000 kids in Nigerian prisons.

    At one point, Okupe allowed himself the luxury of self-praise. “I have sense,” he declared to the amused interviewers. If that was intended to get the critical journalists to accept that he knew what he was talking about and should be believed, it was a faulty anticipation. Words were simply not enough on this occasion. Certainly, Okupe’s image as government spokesman necessarily came with a baggage. He couldn’t dodge the suspicion that trailed him. Even at those times that he yielded ground to the interviewers on some issue, that didn’t make him less of a mouthpiece. It is the burden of he who speaks on behalf of another. Indeed, how accurately can he mirror the other? Also, irrespective of his possible accuracy, how can he shake off the partisan badge of defender and advocate?

    There are times when counter-attack, rather than defence, does the job. Okupe proved this on at least one issue. He did it with admirable skill, and even got everyone laughing. His unexpectedly hilarious response was to a question on the alleged war-like posture of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). One journalist wondered why the PDP was drumming war beats two years to the 2015 general elections. Without a pause, Okupe countered with a rhetorical question: “What do you want them to do, play Owambe music?” The reference to the Yoruba melody of ease was remarkable, and implied that politics was war by other means.

    Yoruba language coloured Okupe’s words now and again. When he reached for the resources of his native tongue to drive home a point, he relied on proverbs. In one instance, the Yoruba saying he deployed carried the imagery of medicine, his original profession. He said: Biegbo tin da ko lose jina. Translation: An injury doesn’t heal as fast as it was sustained. This was his way of arguing that the Jonathan administration inherited a rot that could not be remedied overnight.

    Okupe’s visit provided information for two reports published in the newspaper the following day, April 23. Maybe the road show deepened his insight into the pros and cons of political image laundering. Will he come around another time?

     

    • Macaulay is on the editorial board of The Nation