19th November, 2019
The Nigerian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed Rimi, advised Nigerians coming to Dubai for genuine businesses to consult with the Embassy or the Consulate before embarking on such ventures.
The ambassador advised in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dubai at the 5th Edition of the Global Business Forum (GBF) on Africa tagged `Scale-Up Africa’ which kicked off on Monday.
Rimi said that it was always better to let the embassy know in advance of any business venture.
“In fact, if they need assistance, we will try as much as we can to provide them with such. Some already have their contacts before coming. For us to keep track of genuine businesses, they need to let us know; even if they have a partner here when they come.
“They should let us know who their partners are when they come here and what they are doing. Fine, if they have done due diligence on their business partners on their own and are satisfied. If not, we can also do some due diligence for them,” he said.
According to him, If you tell me you are dealing with Company A and that you are coming to meet with that company, whether you ask us or not to do due diligence, I will try to find out what that company is all about.
“Because a lot of the businesses happen which are not documented by the Consulate. So, it very difficult sometimes for us to say there is this number of visitors coming to do business here in Dubai. So we do not have the statistics of people coming to do business in Dubai,” Rimi said.
On the image of Nigerians in that country, the ambassador said that the UAE Government and its citizens had high regard for Nigerians and Nigeria. He noted that 98 percent of Nigerians living or visiting in Dubai were well behaved.
The ambassador, however, said that over 10,000 Nigerians were living in Dubai.