Nigerians and other foreign national doing business in Egypt are being charged $35,000 for business registration. Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed has denounced the deposit of N19.2 million requested by the Egyptian authorities from foreigners, including Nigerians, to operate a commercial company in Egypt. The minister described the condition as unacceptable during a meeting with the Nigerian community in Cairo.
The Nigerian News Agency reports that the meeting was held on the sidelines of a bilateral discussion with the Africa Export Import Bank, Afreximbank, on how Nigeria can access funds to support its growing creative industry. Alhaji Mohammed had directed some private sector stakeholders involved in digital change to Afreximbank to help them obtain funds to complete the private sector financially driven project.
Speaking at the meeting organised by the Nigerian ambassador to Egypt, Nura Rimi, the minister said such a condition negates the unity that unites African countries. Therefore, he promised to raise the matter with Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyema and other relevant bodies upon his return to Nigeria. The minister also denounces the high number of Nigerian children who do not attend school in Egypt due to the language barrier and the unavailability of registered Nigerian schools in Cairo. The Nigerian community had told the minister that the official language of education in Egypt is Arabic and that the few British- and American-run private schools in that country were exorbitant.
They said that no less than 7,000 Nigerian children in Egypt did not go to school and therefore called for the construction of a Nigerian school in Cairo. They also told the minister that because many of them were unable to pay the mandatory $35,000 deposit, their businesses had been labeled illegal while they were subject to regular harassment and arrest by Egyptian security officials. Meanwhile, the minister called on the Nigerian community in Egypt to ignore most of the negatives stories about Nigeria, especially those on social media. According to him, most of the news received abroad about Nigeria is false, and that the country is at peace and people live in harmony.
“There is no country without its challenges, we faced ours just like Egypt did a few years ago and now they are out. In Nigeria we are challenged by banditry, Boko Haram and militants, but that doesn’t mean Nigeria is at war. Nigeria, in the last six years, has made tremendous progress in infrastructure development, agriculture, aviation and other fields of activity. Unfortunately, the noise of the wrongdoers has drowned out the laudable success of the administration. I want to assure all of you here that whatever problem we have in Nigeria has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity,” he said.
The minister emphasised that despite the security and economic challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, it recorded tremendous achievements in many areas. He listed some of the administration’s leaps and bounds in roads, bridges, rail infrastructure, as well as agriculture, particularly self-sufficiency in rice. Some of the people who responded to the minister’s speech expressed their happiness particularly for the railway project and the second bridge over Niger which, according to the minister, had reached 78 percent completion. The Minister for Women’s Affairs and Social Development, Paulen Talen, also made a presentation at the event.
