The Consul-General of the United States High Commission in Nigeria, Mr. John F. Bray on Monday said American businesses in the country valued at $1.3 billion are currently being threatened.

Speaking in Lagos at the 2018 International Investment Conference with the theme ‘Promoting Investment, Connecting Business’, Bray said the threats were due to the instability in the exchange rate, policy inconsistency, poor electricity, dearth of infrastructure as well as regulatory and security issues.

Bray said although the Nigerian economy was growing at 2.3 percent unlike Cote d’Ivoire which is growing at 7 percent, the country still remained the toast of investors as a result of its large population.

He said American investors were concerned with how policies were made and changed frequently, noting that such alterations had the capacity to discourage investors from doing business in the country.

Citing regulatory issues such as the one involving MTN, in which a directive was issued to the company to return cash allegedly ferried out of Nigeria without recourse to laid-down procedures, the envoy stressed that there seems to be no clear-cut obedience to the rule of law in order to protect investors.