Nigeria expects $3bn in diaspora investment funding

Nigeria expects $3 billion in investment funding from citizens living mainly in the U.S. to support the agriculture, power, mining and transportation sectors, a senior presidential adviser said.

The government will support “a diaspora investment fund,” Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Muhammadu Buhari’s adviser on diaspora affairs, said in an interview in Abuja, the capital. “They’re planning a $3 billion investment in Nigeria. The fund will be driven by Nigerians in America.”

Nigeria is seeking investments to diversify its economy away from oil, which currently accounts for about two-thirds of government revenue and more than 90 percent of foreign income. A sharp drop in crude prices in 2014 and foreign-currency shortages that followed led Nigeria into its first economic contraction in a quarter century in 2016.

Bloomberg reports that the government’s focus is primarily on non-oil investments, with mining and agriculture among the top priorities, Dabiri said. She did not say when the fund would be set up.