The United States government has issued a travel advisory warning its citizens to reconsider traveling to Nigeria due to an increased risk of crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed gangs in the country.
The advisory, updated on September 20, includes a ‘do not travel’ warning for several states, such as Borno, Yobe, Kogi, and Adamawa, due to terrorism and kidnapping, and Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara due to kidnapping.
Furthermore, states like Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Enugu, Imo, and Rivers (excluding Port Harcourt) have been included in the advisory due to concerns about crime, kidnapping, and armed gangs.
“People have attested to the fact that the reforms you have put in place as President are quickly enhancing confidence. American business is paying attention to that and from what we have seen for ourselves, Nigeria is proving to be a new frontier for investment. We will encourage our companies from our end as those reforms continue to deepen,” Adeyemo said.
The American Business Council President, Mr Sops Ideriah, said the extensive turnout at the roundtable by American business chief executives was impressive.
According to him, the turnout served as a testament to the degree to which confidence is rising in response to the actions and words of the President.
He said that this was with respect to ease of doing business, investment promotion, and his willingness to intervene to clear the historical concerns of American business people about doing business in Nigeria.
“Having all the stakeholders in the room, the President of Nigeria being here, from government actors at the federal and state level to ministers and tax authorities present, as well as private sector industrialists in Nigeria.
” We are very positive about the potential of Nigeria and we are just reinforcing to our colleagues the message about the economic opportunities that exist there,” Ideriah said. Acting Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Zacch Adedeji, assured the American captains of industry that the nation’s apex tax authority would not focus on taxing the seed.
” He said it would focus only on the proportionate taxation of the fruit of fully formed industry, through efficient policy synergy with Nigeria’s sub-national authorities.
“The President is a business enabler, not a handicapper. Everything we do will be geared toward making your tax assessment and payment processes as digitally efficient and transparent as possible. We are not after the seed, but the fruit and we will keep to this commitment,” Adedeji said.
Furthermore, President Tinubu has said the UN must transform from being one of the world’s foremost talkshops to discuss global issues into becoming the world’s foremost action coordination center.
The president said this on Wednesday evening while meeting with United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, at his UN Headquarters Office in New York City.
He said a situation in which 70 per cent of the resources being devoted to the world’s poorest countries were being spent and sent back out on overheads and administrative costs would defeat the purpose and objectives of the organisation where help was needed most.
President Tinubu, who said the world would ignore Nigeria at its own peril, underscored the need for the global body to work with Africa to address the challenges of poverty and terrorism. He pledged not to rest until people had arisen out of poverty even if it required decisions at home that made him “temporarily unpopular.
“The poverty ravaging our continent and the question of security and counter-terrorism requires us to work in close and effective synergy.
“The world will ignore Nigeria at its own peril. If we engage in talkshops as real challenges wreak real havoc in real time, we will fail. The time to strike is now. The time to achieve real results is now. I fought for democracy. I was detained for democracy. I am now President and I am determined to prove that democracy can provide the development that our nation and our continent so urgently demands.
“Trace those of us here to our foundations and you will find that we have ties and links with poverty. We must not be ashamed of that history, but poverty is unacceptable.
“I am one of the lucky survivors of gripping poverty. Nigeria is truly a giant; 240 million people and counting with a massive youth population. We are done saying too much. We seek much action. We have arisen out of poverty as individuals, but until our people have arisen out of that, we will not rest, even if it requires decisions at home that make me temporarily unpopular,” the president said.
President Tinubu also said African nations would no longer accept a situation in which human rights advocacy was used by wealthy and powerful nations to stop developing economies from dealing decisively with malign actors who siphoned and smuggled out the continent’s vast mineral resources while smuggling in western-made weapons, which enriched the wealthiest economies in the world at the parasitic expense of African stability and wealth creation.
“We are facing the great challenge of scavengers ravaging our lands and oppressing our people on illegal mines—taking our gold and mineral wealth back to developed economies by stealth and violence against Nigerians. Where one’s human right ends, the rights of another begin. Most especially for self-protection. If we fight, they say ‘human rights,’ but we will now be aggressive and we will question motives. We will stop what is happening in our land. We require your effective collaboration,” he stated.
” In response, the UN Secretary-General emphasised that the UN system is in the process of real reform that will largely address some of the institutional frailties and lack of decision-making power for the developing world, on whose behalf more than 75 per cent of UN resources are accrued.
“We now recognize the need to reform the institution to represent the world as it is today. The questions of debt and SDRs.
“The fact that middle-income countries have only marginal access to concessional funding. In the SDGs Summit, we believe we have a growing political consensus and now, a declaration, in this regard. We are pursuing this with great determination,” the UN Secretary-General said.
He further assured President Tinubu of the fullest support of the UN system for ECOWAS in light of the series of military coups which have occurred in the West African sub-region in the past few months and years.
“Mr. President, we have high expectations for your presidency after the many bold steps you have taken. Nigeria is an indispensable voice in the sub-region.
“We will give you every support needed for your success to be achieved. Your success is Africa’s success and we wish you well,” the UN leader added.
