Nigeria, US Collaborate to Promote Govt, Private Sector Partnership

Udora Orizu in Abuja

Nigeria and the United States of America are collaborating to forge a closer partnership between the government and the private sector.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), Ms. Yewande Sadiku, said building a relationship and collaborating with the US would bring the government and private sector together.

Sadiku, who spoke at a dinner of the Nigeria-USA Bi-National Commission in Abuja, described the job of investment promotion as “something you continue to hit at.”

According to her, “in reality, in terms of the gaps that we are trying to fill in Nigeria is equivalent of building a dream.

“We should have built infrastructure many years ago but we didn’t build it then but now there’s no government that meets infrastructure requirements by itself. Everywhere, government works with the private sector, federal or state but actively with the private sector.”

Sadiku added that the collaboration with the US would allow Nigeria to leverage particular areas.
“The focus is priority sectors that the government has defined in the

Economic Recovery and Growth plan so it’s agriculture , power not just power distribution but also power generation especially in the context of gas power, real estate, services , manufacturing especially light manufacturing, solid minerals.

“So, those are the particular areas and of course the digital economy is an area Nigeria can take real advantage; the energy, vibrancy, entrepreneurship of our young inquisitive and enterprising population,” she said.

She revealed that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed, which is a commercial and investment dialogue between Nigeria and the USA that is designed to bring government and the private sector together to rob minds on the challenges, identify them and address such.

In his remarks, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah, said the President Buhari government was focused on accomplishing his vision and the three-point agenda.

“It doesn’t mean it’s easy to do but I think it’s very clear that the three point agenda is on security, securing our borders and country, fighting corruption and creating the right governance in terms of transparency and a country that is well governed and then thirdly focusing on the economy in order to create economic prosperity for our people, bring Nigeria the way it should belong in this twenty first century and I haven’t met anyone yet that disagrees with this vision, people may question the commitment or how we are going about it but generally the acceptance, that is the way to go.”

He noted that one of the things he was told when he was joining the government is the importance of focus, that if you try to do too many things you will get distracted.

“If you look at the Bi-National Commission and the priorities it has ,those priorities also fit very neatly and consistently to the president’s and this government vision so I think we are working on the right thing, but having said that, it will be nice to then talk about our economic agenda by way of a vision,” the minister said.