Infrastructure Business News

VIDEO: CNBC Interview with Joseph Wambia, CEO of Wambia Capital. Does the Recent Would-Be Terrorist Act Affect Investment Sentiment towards Africa?

Does it make sense to criminalize Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, due to the single act of one Nigerian citizen? Apparently, the US Government thinks “YES”!

Nigeria, a country that is evenly divided along religious lines between Christianity and Islam, was recently placed on the United States’ list of so-called “terrorist” countries. This list includes the likes of Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen. This extreme measure was taken as a response to the recent attempted terrorist attack by a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

This is just a power play by the US government. US put Nigeria on that list because it rightfully thinks it can get away with this action … which it certainly will. The US government had to do “something” to Nigeria to show the US population that the US government was “punishing” the so-called “Nigerian terrorist country”.

Interesting proposition: how about adding UK, France, and Germany to the list? London (or Paris or Frankfurt?) is arguably the one non-Middle Eastern city with the highest probability of originating a terrorist. Of course, the idea sounds ludicrous, just as ludicrous as Nigeria being given “terrorist country” status.

ChairmanKing.com strongly condemns Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his attempted terrorist act. However, the US should not criminalize a country for the single act of one person.

Wambia Capital

Source(s): CNBC

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African Exchanges Attract Emerging Markets Investors: TradeInvestAfrica Interview with Andre DeSimone, Executive Director, Kestrel Capital

Kestrel CapitalSub-Saharan African markets are attracting interest from foreign fund managers seeking to diversify risks in their global portfolio. Andre DeSimone, Executive Director at Kestrel Capital tells us why Africa’s stock markets continue to perform remarkably well despite their small size and low liquidity.

The global financial crisis affected African markets resulting in, among other problems, the drying up of credit lines. What is the status now?

As Africa’s financial system was not highly integrated with America’s or Europe’s, it was not so heavily impacted by the global financial crisis. Also, most African countries never experienced the sort of financial, real estate, or consumer leverage that was experienced in the US and Europe, for example. Aside from a few Nigerian banks, generally the banking systems in Africa weathered the storm quite well. In fact, in Kenya, no major bank suffered badly and many, if not most, continued to record positive earnings growth over the past year. So while the days of easy credit may be gone, in places like Kenya credit is still available to creditworthy clients and real estate development continues briskly. Read the rest of this entry »

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VIDEO: Financial Times (FT) Interview with Remi Babalola, Minister of State for Finance, Nigeria

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Source(s): Financial Times

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