By Abidemi Adebamiwa
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, speaking to foreign investors in Brazil, offered an upbeat assessment of Nigeria’s governance environment, including remarks that appeared to minimise corruption risks. Such language is familiar in economic diplomacy, where leaders seek to project confidence and momentum.
In legal terms, courts in the UK and the US generally regard broad political assurances of this kind as opinion or promotional rhetoric rather than statements of verifiable fact. On that basis alone, they rarely amount to fraud.
The analysis shifts, however, when official reassurance gives rise to reliance. In international investment law, doctrines such as legitimate expectations, often compared to promissory estoppel in common-law systems, focus on whether investors reasonably relied on state representations when committing capital.
Past disputes illustrate the risk. Argentina’s post-Menem arbitration cases, including CMS Gas v. Argentina, and Pakistan’s Reko Diq arbitration show how optimistic assurances followed by policy reversals or regulatory inconsistency can expose states to substantial financial liability.
To me, the lesson from these cases is not that political rhetoric is unlawful, but that reliance quietly transforms rhetoric into risk.
Ethically, the standard is higher than the law’s minimum threshold. Investors rarely expect emerging markets to be free of governance challenges. They do, however, expect candour about risks and credible institutional mechanisms to manage them.
Based on more than fifteen years of facilitating investor engagement with Nigeria, confidence tends to endure longer when leaders acknowledge constraints and explain safeguards rather than present an overly sanitised picture. Credibility, once strained, is difficult to rebuild and costly to regain.
Concerns are compounded when public contradiction appears to meet an assertive institutional response. Public reporting on security agency proceedings involving Omoyele Sowore, following statements accusing the president of dishonesty, has been interpreted by some observers as indicative of the state’s tolerance for dissent.
From my experience, international investors tend to read such episodes not as isolated incidents, but as signals of broader institutional posture.
When reassurance shades into denial, and denial appears resistant to scrutiny, perceived risk rises and investor confidence weakens quietly.
Abidemi is the Managing Editor @ Newspot Nigeria
