Foreign investors will be happy if Jonathan isn’t re-elected – Jim O’Neill

Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Jim O’Neill

Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Jim O’Neill said a loss of Pres. Goodluck Jonathan in next month’s general elections will be regarded as positive by foreign investors.

“If he doesn’t get re-elected, and it’s because of Nigerian people wanting something different and something better, I think the markets would be happy with that,” he told Bloomberg.

“Foreign investors are pretty negative about Nigeria, so I don’t dismiss the possibility that if he lost people actually might react positively.”

The Economist reveals that Jonathan’s economic policies, the sale of the nation’s mismanaged power utilities to private investors and the sacking of central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi sent out a negative signal to the international community.

Sanusi, now the emir of kano, has brought “a lot of credibility” to the Jonathan government with his massive shake up of the banks.

O’Neill ranks Nigeria alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey in his MINT group, noting that the countries, which have four of the largest emerging-market populations outside the BRIC nations of Brazil,Russia, India and China, could become the new names on people’s lips, and further overturn the old world order.

O’Neill however reveals in a BBC 4 Radio Programme: MINTS: The Next Economic Giants, that for Nigeria to achieve its full economic potentials as one of the next economic giants, “it needs to sort out its ‘terrible legacy’: good governance, crime, corruption, education and better infrastructure, especially power generation.”

• Follow us on twitter: @XclusiveMag