President Muhammadu Buhari has come out of his shell, flying from one investment summit to the next in an aggressive pursuit of foreign investors With 559 days left in his presidency.
Nigerians are now witnessing a different Buhari, one who is eager to document his accomplishments at each stop on his international investment tour.
In France last week, when he hosted the Managing Director of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Dr. Mohammed Al-Jasser, and Chief Executive Officer of Total Energies, Patrick Pouyanne, among other global CEOs, Buhari stated, “We need roads, rail, power, airports, and housing, and that is what we have been engaged in for the past six years.”
And our people are noticing the changes. We did not perform poorly in comparison to the resources at our disposal. “What we rely on so much (crude oil) has lost a lot of energy.”
It’s gradually returning, and we’re breathing a little more confidently. However, we anticipate greater cooperation from you.”
In the last three weeks, the president has been on an unusually aggressive investment promotion push, traveling from Saudi Arabia to France and now South Africa to market the country’s business opportunities to global investors in order to attract foreign direct investments (FDIs).
Buhari flew out of Paris on Saturday to join other African leaders in South Africa for the opening ceremony of the second Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) 2021.
The trade show is expected to bring in $40 billion in investments for the continent.
The president has been invited to the event by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The African Export-Import Bank (AFREXIM) is hosting the event, which runs from today to November 21, in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The fair, themed “Building Bridges for a Successful AfCFTA,” aims to increase trade and investment across Africa.
It also promises to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive across the African continent; to bring to fruition the lofty ideas that inspired the creation of AfCFTA by providing a platform for further identifying and proposing solutions to challenges impeding intra-African trade, and to generate market information needed to connect buyers and sellers across the continent.
While in Paris, the president attended a one-day Nigeria International Partnership Forum with the theme “Beyond the Pandemic,” as well as the Peace Forum, both of which provided him with the opportunity to market Nigeria to the rest of the world.
These investment meetings came just a few days after the president returned from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he also attended the Future Investment Initiative Institute’s three-day investment conference.
In France, top government officials and business leaders discussed business opportunities in Nigeria, with participants agreeing that the country requires massive infrastructure growth to compete with the world’s industrialized nations.
Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Aliyu Abubakar; Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva; Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Ali Pantami; and Minister of State, Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki were among those who took part in one of the panel discussions broadcast on Arise News Channel, THISDAY’s broadcast arm.
Mallam Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); Abdul Samad Rabiu, Chairman, BUA Group and President of the France-Nigeria Business Council; Jim Ovia, Founder, Zenith Bank Plc; Wale Tinubu, Chief Executive, Oando; and Dr Benedict Oramah, President, African Export-Import Bank
Speaking at the Nigeria International Partnership Forum titled “Beyond the Pandemic,” Samad stated that Nigeria is endowed with billions of tonnes of mineral resources.
For example, he claimed that the country produced only 30 million tonnes of its five billion tonnes of reserves.
He stated that, while opportunities abound in the country, a lack of infrastructure remains a major issue, explaining that transporting a container load of products from China to Lagos is less expensive than shipping the same items from Lagos to Kano.
The BUA CEO claimed that he shut down some of the company’s production plants in the country due to a lack of power supply, noting that the sector would require significant foreign investment.
“We are sitting on billions of tonnes of various mineral resources,” Samad stated.
When it comes to limestone, the area that I represent, because I have plants in Nigeria, Nigeria has over 4-5 billion tonnes of it.
Today, we produce about 30 million tonnes of cement, which is a combination of all the companies in Nigeria, which are spread across the country.”
He went on to say that while Nigeria was one of about 12 countries with iron ore, gas, and coal, it was the only one that did not produce steel and spent $2.5 billion on imports each year.
“Yet, with $2.5 billion, you’ll be able to set up a plant of 1.5 to 2 million tonnes per annum, which means that with that amount of money that you spend annually importing steel, you’ll be able to set up a plant that will be processing steel forever and, thus, you won’t need to spend that money every year,” Samad explained. You know, because there is nothing you can do without infrastructure.
Today, believe it or not, transporting a container from China to Lagos is less expensive than transporting a container from Lagos to Kano.
Even though you are aware that freight rates have risen due to a lack of proper infrastructure at the ports.
“Because we only have about three ports, we need to improve in these areas.”
All of this, however, necessitates funding. And, of course, unless we can get financing and do these things, it will be extremely difficult.”
Kyari stated that the new Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) provided another opportunity for Nigeria, emphasizing that the current high oil and gas prices are only a reflection of a demand-supply imbalance. “Supply is not meeting demand today,” he said.
As many of us are aware, global demand has risen above pre-COVID levels. It is approximately 100 million BPD.”
Pantami, for one, emphasized that Nigeria, with a population of over 200 million people, remained the economic gateway to West Africa.
He claimed that the rest of West Africa had roughly the same population as Nigeria.
“Furthermore, the African continent as a whole has a population of about 1.3 billion people,” Pantami added. “Being in Nigeria, you are relatively in the center,” he added.
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You will also be close to other parts of Africa, which is advantageous when it comes to investing in information and communications technology (ICT).
“As we all know, today’s youth are digital natives. They understand ICT better than anyone else. Our country’s average age is 18.1 years.
As a result, our population has been dominated by youth, who are digital natives.
Furthermore, as of today, Nigeria is the 14th youngest country in the world.
So, in addition to cheap labor, and many more, and the country’s cosmopolitan nature, these are some of the advantages we have in Nigeria.”
While emphasizing the importance of foreign investment, Ovia recalled that when Nigeria’s telecommunications industry began to grow, Econet brought its technology from Zimbabwe, a much smaller country, and MTN brought it from South Africa.
He bemoaned the fact that, while teledensity was at 100%, broadband technology deployments remained at 40%, emphasizing that there is still tremendous opportunity in technology.
Tinubu, the CEO of Oando, stated that Nigeria had demonstrated its ability to be transparent in business, citing the open nature of the GSM bidding process in the early 2000s as proof that Nigeria was capable of doing the right thing.
“We had a very simple, transparent advertisement for GSM licenses in the newspapers and on the radio,” he explained. To bid for the license, you paid a deposit of $20 million.
Now, this is an environment that has always been chastised as a corrupt country where nothing ever happens.
We had a license, bid for it, won it for $285 million, and a group of young people formed a GSM company that rolled out. It is now a 30 million to 40 million line company.
Nigeria has 120 million active GSM lines and one of the world’s highest tele-densities.
There is talent in Nigeria, and there is a market for it.” Oramah, President of Africaxim Bank, also spoke, arguing that as long as Nigeria remains at the bottom of the value chain, it will never experience high economic growth.
“So, what is the way out, you may ask?” he said. I have no new insights to offer because we have discussed these issues numerous times.
But what we must do is start doing what we always believe are the solutions. ” And I believe that the only clear way out is for us to start trading more with ourselves.
In fact, I don’t believe we require a rocket scientist to provide a solution. Instead of just talking about problems and solutions, the solution is for us all to start doing.”
