Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said Nigeria remains the best place to invest given its market and enterprising population.
He listed Nigeria’s power sector as one of the most viable investment platforms amongst others available to foreign investors.
Osinbajo who is currently visiting the United States, stated this while interacting with interested investors and foreign policy experts on Nigeria’s economic prospects and related matters at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
With huge power generation and distribution gap, Nigeria’s population which is put at over 200 million, continued to suffer from poor electricity supply at less than 4,000 megawatts, according to the latest statistics.
Osinbajo said the potential, effort and impact being made by Nigerians in technology can enable the country to roll out indigenous technology solutions that can transform the global space.
Osinbajo who stated that Nigeria is opening up the power sector added that “We are asking power firms to come in and invest in the end to end power supply. Power Africa – a USAID project has made a commitment of $110m over five years (2018 – 2023) to provide transaction support to the entire value-chain covering gas supply, distribution, transmission and generation activities with our population, and a market-driven power sector, so the next few years promise exciting prospects.
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“This is also the case with other infrastructure. We are embarking on the largest investment in infrastructure in our history, welcoming private investments in concessions and projects rail, roads, airports, and other infrastructure.”
He disclosed that Nigeria has huge prospects also exist in investments in renewable energy, energy-efficient-processes and clean technology.
According to him “gas had been flared for almost 60 years by major oil companies but in 2017 government approved the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme, designed to eliminate gas flaring through technically and commercially sustainable gas utilization projects. The Programme offers flared gas for sale through a transparent and competitive bidding process.”
Responding to questions on an ongoing international dispute regarding some global technology firms and the issue of 5G, Osinbajo explained that even though Nigeria is yet to roll out 5G, “we do not have those complications (comparatively) in taking decisions in that regard. But, we practically welcome every company that wants to do business with us in Nigeria. Huawei is in Nigeria and so are all the other technology companies.
“We haven’t gone through any kind of decision making for rolling out the 5G technology; as a matter of fact, we are going to roll out 5G ourselves. Talking about the equipment and technology; how did the Chinese get it? How did anyone else get the technology? We will do it ourselves.”
He said he is optimistic about the possibility of developing homegrown capacity in the technology space said the government would leverage the efforts and resourcefulness of youths to actualize its potentials in the sector.
“Our potential in technology and entertainment has been attracting huge attention. First is the market, at 174 million GSM phones, we are among the top ten telephone users in the world, and we have the highest percentage of people who use the internet on their phones in the world,”
“ We are also number two in mobile internet banking in the world, and 17 million Nigerians are on Facebook. Microsoft has announced that it will establish a 100 million dollar African Development Centre in Nigeria.
“Second is the ever-growing number of technology startups, young digital entrepreneurs who are creating solutions to value chain and logistics challenges and creating thousands of jobs in the process. Andela, a software company training software developers for many Fortune 500 companies received a $24m dollar investment from Facebook.”
On agriculture, Osinbajo said, “Nigeria has the 9th largest stock of arable land in the world. We have become world leaders in cassava, yams, sorghum, and millet, and we are on the threshold of self-sufficiency in paddy rice production.
“Seeing greater interest in agriculture and the agro-allied value chain, there is no question that aside from the export market, our population presents a massive and lucrative local market.”
Speaking specifically about what government was doing to revive manufacturing in the country, the Vice President said the Federal Government’s Project Made In Nigeria for Export, titled Project MINE was conceived to drive the country’s industrialization agenda.
He also listed the creation of special economic zones, the Project MINE designed to attract sunset industries from more advanced manufacturing economies, in search of affordable well-trained labour in Nigeria, adding that “ Nigeria is focusing on industries for local manufacture of goods for which Nigeria has a comparative advantage. These include cotton, garments, leather, and light industrial manufacturing.”
“Investors for the project include AFDB, Afroexim Bank, and AFC. Already work has begun in three locations. The Enyimba Economic City in Aba, Abia State, covers over 9500 hectares. Three international anchor tenants have been secured for phase one of the project. The city will be served by an existing IPP for power and will create 625,000 jobs when it is fully built.
“There is also the Lekki Model Industrial Park in partnership with the Lagos State Government in Lagos. It is set on 1000 hectares in the northeast cluster of Lekki Free Zone. It has already attracted world-class anchor tenants for textiles and garments, agro-processing and light industrial manufacturing including the number 1 Chinese and number 9 global textiles and garment group, (RUYI Group).
“The third project in its early stages is the Funtua Cotton Cluster in Katsina State which is in North-West Nigeria. Funtua has the largest aggregation of cotton ginneries in Nigeria. The cluster will aggregate cotton from 800,000 farmers in Northern Nigeria and become the largest integrated cotton ginning, spinning and weaving complex in Sub Saharan Africa.”
