O’Neill Says Jonathan Election Loss May Be Nigeria Positive

  Former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management,Jim O’Neill, said during an interview on Jan 7th in Abuja that a loss by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in general elections next month may be viewed “positively” by foreign investors and probably won’t rattle markets

 While Jonathan, 57, has presided over the sale of the nation’s mismanaged power utilities to private investors, his economic policies in the last four years “could have been better,”
 Firing central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi last year, who brought “a lot of credibility” to the government, sent out a negative signal, he said.
“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,” said O’Neill.
“Foreign investors are pretty negative about Nigeria, so I don’t dismiss the possibility that if he lost people actually might react positively.”

 O’Neill ranks Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey in his MINT group. The countries have four of the largest emerging-market populations outside the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, an acronym he coined at Goldman.

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