BEFORE MANUFACTURERS LOOK ELSEWHERE.

The saying by the wise ones even now very much a cliché, that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, makes sense in today's Nigeria.

It looks like it did not make much sense at similarly critical times before now hence Nigeria lost manufacturers of textiles, batteries, tyres, and assemblers of vehicles amongst others.

In those gone times, the foreign investors or better called partners who decided to shift base to neighbouring countries or leave Africa altogether did because it was no profitable.

Indeed, for many it had become more profitable to satisfy the huge Nigerian market through products and services domiciled in other countries.

Now though, the situation is a bit different: Nigeria does not even have enough foreign exchange to sustain national appetite for foreign goods and so, stimulating demand at home should make local manufacturers not to even contemplate leaving Nigeria.

Well, this can only be right if such manufacturers do not import foreign inputs and, more importantly, are not presently having foreign denominated loans in their books.

So far, half year results released are beginning to show why it may not be long before some manufacturers consider if it was still worth physical presence in Nigeria to satisfy customers.

What is visible from the figures got so far is that manufacturers still good cash in their till, now depend more in interest income, not corr business to stay afloat.

Also visible is the fact that those ones who entered 2015 with liquidity issues are increasingly having to work more for their creditors.

Finally, those ones who, hitherto had foreign denominated loans in their books since this year, have suddenly turned out to work for foreign creditors with increasing chances of being unable to service debts as the Naira continues to deprecate.

Hence, according to latest figures, manufacturers like Ashaka Cement and Berger Paints ended half year to June only with considerably reduced profit margins but with help from interest income.

Then a company like International Breweries was only dragged into loss league while working for its local financiers.

Also a company like Champion Breweries ended the same period with higher margins with great help from top growth in finance income ahead of growth in core revenue.

The worst case scenario was the one discernible from the half year figures of Nestle Nigeria, one of the truly blue chips in the Nigerian stock market.

Like most of the above manufacturers, it did the right things to costs within management control but found its finance cost jumping from N3226.9m by June 2015 to N14891.2m at the same time this year.

Nestle Nigeria was awash with N36549.1m compared to only N12929.5m previously, so it did not suddenly run to Nigerian banks to raise very costly funds.

The main reason was that due to the official depreciation of the Naira, its net loss from foreign exchange dealings jumped to N13,133.7m as against N1716m previously.

And so, for the half year, in spite of all the cost cutting done, its profit before tax plummeted from N10606.6m to just N896.4m.

These and others are the bird in the hands of Nigeria today and it will be foolhardy to loose sight of their pains and weary wings while focussing on attracting foreign investors to help Nigeria get back on its feet.

The irony of their situation is that even for them, in the long run free interbank foreign exchange market is the way to go because it guarantees free entry and exit of capital.

But first, they have to ride the pain brought on by the depreciation in the value of the Naira and growing consumer resistance to price increase even of the cost push type.

That is why government should not see only the potential of having more Naira from petro dollars to spend, but also recognise that healthy government purse does not necessarily equate with national economy growth.

What guarantees growth more than anything else is value added and that comes from local manufacture, innovation and astute economic management.

So, come up with some incentives to cushion the effect of naira depreciation and higher interest rates on the bird on hand while eyeing the two in the bush.