INVESTORS ACTUALLY DON'T BEG.

Time was when Nigeria was presumably overflowing with opportunities for investors to make money because crude oil money was flowing. Then not many needed to be convinced to think Nigeria especially investors from Europe and America with colonial ties and shared language and cultural pasts.
Aside from the earnings from crude oil, there was also the growing concentration of human beings with good appetite for new products, and new processes even if such led to cultural upheavals.
Yet even then investors were not beggars. Not to talk of now when crude oil prices have hit new lows and Nigeria, led by its president, is virtually going round the world begging investors to either come in or grow their involvement in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, we beg yet we pay little attention to how to make it more attractive for them to come. Many old rules and regulations remain as they were when investors rushed in of their own accord.
For example, before these times, to register securities with SEC Nigeria you paid paid N10,000 then paid from 0.3% to 0.15% per cent of the nominal value of the security to be registered in graduated form.
Different rates too are paid when registering bonds, Real estate investment funds and unit trusts. Then finally 0.03% is paid as commission on each deal while everyone paid N100 for certification of first page of documents and N25 per page there after.
Another good example is what it takes to register products with NAFDAC, the food and drug watch dog. To register imported products for sale in Nigeria N250,000 is paid for the form and N750,000 per product plus VAT.
Other agencies no doubt must have similar procedures and rates payable for different services and approvals and certification.
Now if we truly want investors to look our way we must adjust these rates and procedures to reflect new economic focus.
For example who says registration fees for products we don't want to encourage people to bring in can not be increased to a million or more per product? And that the fees for registering food products etc produced in Nigeria can not be reduced?
Who says any of these rates charged by the different agencies can not be reduced or cancelled altogether for investors we want to attract in these times and made stiffer for sectors in which Nigerians can survive without foreign products and services?
One thing is obvious: Nigeria can no more bank on crude oil but it still has a large population; natural gas and mineral deposits in abundance. So the times demand concerted efforts and new incentives to ensure the right investors  have Nigeria in view even now.
That also includes no more punitive charges, pronouncements and levies that give the wrong signal.