•Tinubu and Dele Kelvin Oye
Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye, has decried Nigeria’s ongoing spree of foreign investment and diplomatic trips under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as unstrategic, wasteful, ineffective and consistently failed to deliver measurable economic benefits despite heavy public spending.
Oye made the remarks in a policy document entitled ‘The Cultural Key: Why Nigerian Businesses and Government Delegations Fail Abroad – and How to Master Cross-Cultural Commerce’.
According to him, successive Nigerian delegations travel abroad with optimism, ceremonial ambition and large entourages, but return home with little to show beyond photographs, signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) and diplomatic handshakes, reports The Guardian.
He argued that many of the agreements rarely translate into actual investments or long-term partnerships, describing the pattern as “predictable and wasteful.”
“At Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, we have observed with growing concern the persistent pattern: Nigerian delegations travel abroad with little more than optimism and ceremonial ambition.
“The results are predictable handshake photographs with foreign officials that yield no memoranda of understanding; MOUs signed in glittering hotel ballrooms that collapse within months; investment ‘roadshows’ that consume hundreds of millions of naira and return with nothing but jet lag and duty-free shopping,” Oye noted.
The former NACCIMA boss also highlighted cultural illiteracy as a major factor undermining Nigeria’s global economic engagements, noting that countries such as Japan, Germany, China, Türkiye, Canada and the United States (U.S.) operate with well-structured and often contrasting business cultures that require preparation, patience and adaptation.
He said, “Across the global marketplace, a quiet truth governs commerce that few Nigerian businesses and government delegations have fully grasped: culture is not decoration; it is structure. The way a German chief executive officer evaluates a proposal, the silence of a Japanese counterpart during negotiations, the warmth of a Brazilian handshake, and the understated nod of a British investor are not quirks of personality. They are deeply encoded systems of trust, hierarchy and decision-making forged over centuries.
“For Nigerian businesses, government delegations, and investment-seeking officials, who treat the world as a uniform marketplace, the consequences are not merely academic; they are measured in lost contracts, failed partnerships, wasted sovereign resources and national embarrassment.
“The assumption that Nigerian charm, enthusiasm and a well-crafted PowerPoint are universally transferable is perhaps the costliest delusion in our international economic engagement.”
Oye called for urgent reforms, including mandatory cultural training for all official delegations, stronger engagement with the Nigerian Diaspora, and strict monitoring of all MOUs signed abroad.
He also recommended establishing cultural advisory units within government institutions to improve negotiation outcomes and international credibility.
