VP Osinbajo’s Remarks At A Business Roundtable For Nordic Investors/CEOs

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, THE VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE, NORDIC-AFRICAN BUSINESS SUMMIT, HELD AT CLARION HOTEL, OSLO, NORWAY ON THE 8^TH OF OCTOBER, 2019.

There is a saying that Norwegians are the happiest people on earth.  There was also an earlier saying that Nigerians are the happiest people on earth.  There is some competition there, but I think that what has happened is that Norway has remained consistent, a great example of how business, commerce can be done properly especially to the benefit of the people, so, I am looking to how I can export some of this happiness to Nigeria as well.

Just as it has been pointed out, there are incredible opportunities today, for business and trade, especially with coming into effect of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.  Many of us are also familiar with all what it took to get us there. We also recognize that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa by GDP and also in terms of the market.

Norway, of course, over the years, is one of our best partners, so we must begin the conversation that can be beneficial to both sides. Our government is committed to enabling foreign investment. Only last week, we got some good news on ease of doing business, the World Bank Ease of Doing Business report rated us as one of the top 20 most improved economies in doing business in the world. And we intend to work very hard on this business of ease of doing business.

I think one of the major questions that people have is around navigating some of the regulatory challenges and of course, most of you would probably appreciate that Nigeria is a federal state, which means sometimes, as a matter of fact, all the times, you have to deal with sub-nationals. You are not only dealing with the Federal Government and in terms of land, but the States own the land.

I have had the privilege for the past few years of chairing what we call the National Economic Council, which is the meeting point of the Federal Government and all  the State governors and a great deal of interests and attention being paid to issues around getting the States to be up to date in all of the parameters for ease of doing business, issues around titles to land, building permits and the various  other issues that the States control so that business can be made much easier.

So, I think that what we have seen and I am sure that most of you who have been doing business in Nigeria for a long time, are already very familiar with all of the macroeconomic issues and with some of the good reports that we have been getting, especially growth figures and some stability in terms of monetary policy.  But there is much to do and this is why I think this round table is particularly more important for us.

We are in the process of diversifying our economy and this has opened up prospects in infrastructure especially roads, rail and power. Power in particular with renewable energy and there is quite an uptake in the solar sector.  And there is plenty, I think that can be done with the power sector. One of the very important things for us in the power sector is really opening up that space. You know, of course, the power sector had been deregulated for almost ten years and especially the generation and distribution aspect of the power sector, transmission as remained government-owned.

What we found is that there is now an urgency about doing a lot more in terms of off-grid capacity, micro-grids in particular.  We have done quite a bit in trying to encourage private investment within willing-buyer, willing-seller agreement in different areas, for example, in markets, store owners. For example, the Sabon Gari market in Kano which has about 50,000 different shops.  We have private sector solar power facility providing power to almost 50,000 retailers and have the same in Ariaria market in the South East and several other markets.

The whole idea is to enable a situation where private power producers especially renewable energy power producers are able to sell directly to customers in different areas. We think that this is particularly important because without that, we may be unable to cover all the various areas that require power today and still over sixty million households that require power and we think that the fastest way will be renewable energy.

Last month, we commissioned the largest hybrid solar plant at the Bayero University that has about 7.1MW capacity solar power plant. Of course, it’s the trend of doing this across the country.  The plant as I said, is purely private sector owned.

Agriculture also is one of our priority sectors and we have employed targeted policies to move the country towards into self-sufficiency in food production and so now we have doubled the paddy rice production in the past three years and investments in the various agricultural value chain has gone up.

A few of such investments include OLAM Group’s investment in poultry feed mills of a combined capacity of 720,000 metric tonnes per annum. WACOT group has built a rice mill with a production capacity of 120,000 metric tonnes. Dangote is also investing in a million tonnes of rice mills. Flour Mills has also built a sugar mill in Minna which produces 100,000 tonnes of sugar annually.

Our road map for modernizing livestock production to serve a modernized dairy and meat processing industry is what we have described as the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). It is being implemented as a partnership between the Federal and State Governments with entry points for stakeholders and investors.

Just a week ago on the 2nd of October 2019, the European Union’s mission in Nigeria met with our Agricultural team to discuss further collaborations on the NLTP. This was a follow up to engagements we have had with them since August 2018.

Denmark’s Arla has already invested about N7.65billion in one of our gazetted grazing reserves in Damau under a loan-equity arrangement with the State Government and private investors. So, there is quite a bit of opening around there. Apart from the powdered milk-producing factory it has in Lagos, Arla is also investing in a liquid milk factory in Oyo State that will be fed from local dairy farmers. So, private investors from the Netherlands have also approached us to collaborate on the NLTP. And we think that is an area where a lot can be done.  We think there are opportunities in livestock and diary in the country and we are open to doing more.

We consider technology our springboard, as the say to the fourth industrial revolution and we are pleased with the zeal and tenacity with which our young people are taking advantage of opportunities to innovate.

Only about 10 – 20% of the capacity of our internet infrastructure is being utilized despite an ICT contribution to GDP of nearly 15% of our GDP. So, there is huge opportunity for investments to expand the digital infrastructure to underserved areas.

In recent times, representatives of some of the Nordic Countries have met with some members of my team.  Some have participated in some of our meetings, the others have been briefed about our Digital Nigeria Drive, we are focused on digitization to free up the golden spectrum for broadband usage. We intend to roll out this wholesale wireless broadband across Nigeria which will significantly reduce barriers to entry for ISPs. So, we have discussed innovative solutions for road traffic monitoring and security surveillance through our Federal Road Safety Corps and other security agencies.

We have also looked at the transportation of our PMS petroleum logistics to combat smuggling.  These are areas we had discussions with several companies and we have increased investments especially from multinationals in facilitating access to digital infrastructure in Nigeria generally.

We think that there is a lot of opportunities and Nigeria has some of the most interesting figures, especially with respect to internet penetration and mobile payment systems.  At the moment we are possibly one of the largest users of Internet broadband and mobile payment systems.  We are certainly one of the largest in terms of mobile payment systems today.  So, there is great opportunity in technology as well.

There are so many different areas and I am sure that many are already interested in the oil and gas sector which has remained an interesting area.  We have done a lot more in terms of encouraging investment in the deep off-shore now. I am sure you heard that in the next couple of months, we shall be doing some more bid rounds; bid rounds had been suspended now for a couple of years but bid rounds would be opened now in another two-three months.  Asides from that we have the Nigeria Gas Flare Initiative which we think may also interest a few of our investors in oil and gas sector.  This basically is collecting the flared gas for use in the power sector and also for LPG usage.  I think this again, presents some opportunities which you might want to consider.

I won’t take much more of your time, I am sure that as per your questions, I may be able to give more clarifications and may hopefully also get you interested in what we are doing.

Thank you very much.