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Imo Investment Summit – An Insight —Kanayo Esinulo
Posted by TheNEWS on July 12, 2010

Kanayo Esinulo.

The organisers seemed determined to make a huge success of it. Every department of the event was ordered and calculated. This was not surprising, for specifics were tidied up and the flow from one item to another, in the two-day Imo International Investment Summit, the first since the creation of the state. It suffered no visible hitches. The registration and accreditation exercises were smooth and well appointed. Foreign entrepreneurs and delegations came in their numbers, and with packaged messages that showed that they had fairly good knowledge about investment opportunities in the state of their destination. When the summit stabilised, after an hour or so of some pep talks by officials of Imo State Investment Promotion Agency, ISIPA, who were really the hosts, on the very first day of the summit, 8 June, entrepreneurs and delegations took to the podium, in a relay, to present papers on how “the government, the indigenous entrepreneurs and foreign investors can forge a symbiotic partnership that grows the economy of the state and maximise profit for the investors”. They all spoke, in my view, with authority and insight. The country representative of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, in Nigeria, Dauda Toure, was there, and so was the former Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern. Government delegations from Zamfara, Ebonyi and Niger states, interestingly, showed strong presence at the summit which was declared open by the representative of Vice-President Namadi Sambo.


A top functionary of ISIPA told me, at the end of the talkshop, that the success of the Summit proves that “Imo State is no longer a product of small thinking.” That seemed to be the central theme that the leader of the American team, J.C. Watts, from Oklahoma, largely dwelt on, in the position paper he presented. Investors in his state in the United States, he said, were interested in investing in Imo State. “We are prepared to be part of the big dream of the present administration in Owerri because in Oklahoma where the large delegation I lead come from, we give no room whatsoever to small thinking. Small thinking produces small achievement and that is not why we are here. If the state government guarantees us safety of our investments, assures us of security of our personnel and delivers on steady power supply, the big corporation I represent in the United States surely will bring in capital and expertise that would transform Imo into a model modern state,” he said. Mr. Watts then pointed at a section of the conference hall where the delegation he led was seated and said with tantalising humour: “I couldn’t have been here with this number of men and women if our corporation did not consider this summit important and strategic to our investment portfolio.”

The country representative of the UNDP in Nigeria, Dauda Toure, was sure Imo could be one of the most “viable, vibrant and self-sufficient states in Nigeria if the dreams of its present leadership can translate to concrete results”. That noble wish came after state officials, in their presentations, had carefully itemised economic potentials and opportunities that abound in Imo, but which needed indigenous and foreign investments to help catapult the state from agrarian to an industrial community. A state that has one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the country cannot but be attractive to investments, he claimed. This was largely captured, I think, by the executive governor of the state himself, Ikedi Ohakim, when it came to his turn to present his paper at the summit. He said: “As part of the oil-rich Niger Delta with vast oil and gas reserves, Imo State has two added advantages. The topography is very user-friendly. Secondly, Imo is a peaceful state, politically generated heat notwithstanding.” Curiously, the governor’s paper, to me, was silent on the rumour making the round that large quantity of crude oil has, indeed, been found around Njaba River by an American multinational oil company and if Imo State truly has the largest gas reserve in Nigeria. The story has been circulating within the oil industry for quite some time. If such finds had been made, wouldn’t the summit have been the appropriate venue to announce the good news? Must it be the prerogative of the federal government or its agency to give out such information? These were the questions some participants were asking in subdued tones. Unfortunately, no official of the state government was ready to discuss the matter.

But anyone who listened well to the presentation of the former Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, may well have come to the conclusion that Imo State was already in the big league of Nigeria’s oil producing areas. The second point he made was that security lapses in a polity should not necessarily scare away or discourage investments, if those in authority demonstrate sufficient commitment to fight crime and check the excesses of overzealous young men, as he put it. Mr. Ahern said available statistics show that it was during the violence in Northern Ireland that it became one of the most industrialised IT hubs in the world. Governor Ohakim’s paper also harped on this point, even with more pungency: “We have a thing or two to learn from the Irish experience.” Iraq was another case study that came up for mention. The Arab country, the audience was told, continues to enjoy a steady flow of foreign investments in spite of the violence that has characterised Iraqi society for more than a decade. The ultimate message was simple and clear: oil-producing areas of Nigeria, of which Imo is a part, are and would remain heavy investment zones in spite of the rising political consciousness among the youths of the long-neglected Niger Delta region.

The presence of delegations from some state governments added flavour, if not more, to the two-day economic Summit. The deputy governor of Ebonyi and commissioners from Zamfara and Niger states were there. And it was good that they attended the Summit because what came out were revealing and fascinating. For instance, it is not public knowledge yet that Zamfara State has ‘more gold than South Africa’ plus other strategic solid minerals. The commissioner that represented Governor Mahmud Shinkafi made that claim at the summit, and insisted that it could be verified, when asked at the end of the day’s proceedings, by this reporter if what he said at the podium was just claptrap. “Oh no, it is very true and verifiable,” he said with so much confidence and authority. Similarly, the Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State, Professor Chigozie Ogbu, said with emphasis that “Abakiliki rice had bestowed on Ebonyi the title and reputation of Nigeria’s food basket long before Benue State, which now lays claim to being the food paradise of Nigeria, was even created.” If that was really true and meant to extract applause, the diminutive professor got a dose of it. Interestingly, the commissioner who represented “the chief servant of Niger State” said, in a preamble to his own submission, that Imo preempted his state by staging the summit ahead of their own schedule and time table. “We were packaging a similar summit when we reliably learnt that Owerri was ahead of us. Nevertheless, the chief servant of our state still approved that we should be here to represent him and the state.”

http://thenewsafrica.com/2010/07/12/imo-investment-summit-%E2%80%93-an-insight-%E2%80%94kanayo-esinulo/