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| Sir Richard Branson |
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, an English
businessman and a billionaire investor, who is a founder of Virgin Group Ltd., has described the crop of leaders in the Nigeria political
system as greedy, selfish and insane, which according to him, is killing big
brands wishing to do business with the government of the country, for the
growth of Nigeria’s economy.
Richard
Branson exclusively narrated his experience while doing business in Nigeria as to
what gave him the understanding about how corrupted Nigerian Politicians and how
it has affected many foreign investors from coming into the country to do their
business.
The
chairman of Virgin Atlantic said: “we have virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by
setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government. The
details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s are
better imagined”.
“We put together
a very good airline-the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA
operational safety audit accredited but unfortunately it got tied down to the
politics of the country, we led the airlines for 11 years”.
“We fought
daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from
us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of
favour.
The Watchdogs
constituted by the government (regulatory body), didn’t know what to do and
persistently asking for bribes at any point. Nigeria people are generally nice
but the politicians are very insane. That may be irony because the people make
up the politicians.
“But those
politicians are selfish. We did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria
during the joint venture, realizing that the government didn’t bring nothing to
the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria
Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now
if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians KILLED it.”
Nigeria is
a country we SHALL NEVER consider to doing business again” he concluded.
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