President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday met with a United States business delegation sent to Nigeria alongside leading American businessmen.
The team, which also includes senior US business executives who comprise the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA), are on a fact-finding mission that will see the American private sector working in partnership with the African business community, to address some of the continent’s most pressing challenges, including building modern infrastructure.
According to a statement by Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, the team is in Nigeria to assess the opportunities and challenges of doing business in the country.
This is as the President said his administration would continue to embrace the support and understanding of the United States’ effort towards a greater internal security and socio-economic progress in Nigeria.
Receiving the delegation led by the United States Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, at the Presidential Villa, President Muhammadu Buhari applauded ongoing American collaboration with his administration on security and developmental issues.
“I remain grateful for the reception accorded me and my team when we visited the United States at the invitation of President Obama.
“We discussed security, corruption, infrastructure, and many other issues. We thank America for sending experts to train our troops and providing hardware for our military, because we must first stabilise the country before we can move it forward,” according to the statement issued by Adesina, at the end of the close-door meeting, quoted the President as saying to the delegation, which included the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, and three others.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who was at the meeting, said “although Nigeria currently faces serious challenges, it is also a time of great opportunities for the country.
“It’s time to diversify our economy from oil. We’ve always talked about it, but never got round to doing it. The opportunity has come now. We have all it takes to be an agricultural nation. We also have solid minerals and we must develop our infrastructure in order to aid business.”
Pritzker told President Buhari that she was in Nigeria with 10 leading American businessmen and women, at the prompting of President Obama.
“The purpose is to better understand the opportunities and challenges of doing business in Nigeria. Our team is very optimistic about your government’s commitment to security, good governance, fighting corruption, having reliable and regular regulatory policies.
“All these make us optimistic about working together. We are not here to sell policies, but to partner with you,” she said.
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