Thread by @OrjiUka

"Rather than create the enabling environment for Foreign Direct Investments; Nigerian governments routinely breach contracts with relative impunity and thereby ultimately undermine their investment drives."

The foregoing constituted the premise of my LLM Dissertation submitted to
@KCL_Law of @KingsCollegeLon in August 2019 with the title, 'An Appraisal of the Legal/ Regulatory Regime for the Promotion & Protection of Foreign Investments in Nigeria'.

Exactly 12 months after that assertion, it is regrettable to report that rather than improve, things have largely degenerated and both tiers of Govt in Nigeria (do the LGAs still count?) have declared war on businesses. In hindsight we should have seen it coming.

Since we all agree that with the right economic policies, FDI inflow into developing economies can be a major catalyst for economic devt, why do Nigeria & other African countries fail in their quest for improved FDI? These past weeks, Nigerian govts have given us the answer.

I am not ignorant of the economic difficulties that countries all over the world are facing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fundamental question is whether Nigerian Govts have acted in a way that is deserving of the benefit of the doubt? The answer is in the question.

I said to those who cared to listen that I could not wrap my head around the decision to impose an economic lockdown in Nigeria apart from the reason that we did it because other countries did as well. But did we also provide the palliatives that those countries provided?

By way of recap, the UK Govt paid wages of furloughed workers up to £2500 a month so they could stay at home. Canadian Govt gave $2000 a month. US passed $2 Trillion Relief package. Of course we all saw that Tweet from the UAE or was is Saudi? Granted we didn't have the money...

What did Nigerian Govt do? Gave loans to some businesses (let's not even go there), spent N500 Billion on the poor (no comments) and so on. Did Govt cut the cost of governance? No, instead they took more foreign loans to fund the bloated style of governance.

If only it ended there...

With businesses just recovering from a 3-month lockdown and looking for ways to survive, they have been hit with all manners of taxes and levies. In the same period that VAT wad increased, next NIPOST, now Lagos State Govt. It hasn't even ended.

It has been suggested that Nigerian govt officials across all levels take their chances and breach contracts because they know that the case would be stuck in courts while their tenures run out. The frequency of contractual breaches make this a credible assumption.

What they fail to factor in is the option under International Investment Law whereby foreign investors have tailored dispute resolution mechanisms that allow them challenge these contractual breaches. These mechanisms are independent, efficient and relatively speedy.

I will use the charges sought to be introduced by the Lagos State Govt on e-hailing taxi companies [some of whom are owned by foreign investors] as a demonstrative example of the potential breach of the Fair and Equitable Treatment standard in BITs and the possible consequences.

In this thread @adetolaov summarises in very stark detail, the terms of the new Guidelines issued by the Lagos State Government.

What I propose to do is to break down the potential liability that the Lagos State Government and by extension the Federal Republic of Nigeria face if someone decides to challenge these actions. You can then extrapolate this to the rest of the decisions they have been taking.