The Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has promised that the private sector will “invest heavily” in job-creating initiatives.

He added that Nigeria’s economy can be turned around “within a few months” as the “issues are not that bad.”

The business mogul expressed optimism after President Bola Tinubu inaugurated a 31-member Presidential Economic Coordination Council at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.

Thursday’s inauguration comes three months after the President established the committee on March 27, 2024.

The committee comprises Tinubu, Vice President Kashima Shettima, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Yemi Cardoso.

The PECC also comprises 13 persons drawn from the organised private sector, including the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; UBA Chairman, Mr. Tony Elumelu; BUA Founder, Abdulsamad Rabiu, among others, who would serve on the Council for one year.

Speaking, Dangote said, “The private sector and the public sector will actually work together to make sure that we better a lot of our people…we are going to sit down and advise the government on the issue kind of policies that government should roll out.

“Most of these things, we have them. They have already been discussed over and over. It is a matter of implementation. I think the choice of people who are on the PECC is good enough to advise the government on how to implement it.

“Our own from the private sector is to…invest heavily and create jobs. The government doesn’t really create jobs; what they do is to give us the right policies. I keep saying our issues are not that bad, this economy can be turned around within a few months and I, think we are on that way. I thank the President for inaugurating this Council. We will start working immediately, and I can assure you that you will see a lot of changes coming.”

Meanwhile, Tinubu said his administration is determined to, in the next few months, increase crude oil production to two million barrels per day and generate more electricity for Nigerians.

He described Nigeria’s current power generation and crude oil production as’ shameful’.

Tinubu told the private sector players, “As a nation, it is so shameful that we have about 4.5 gigawatts. We must increase our oil production too to 2 million barrels per day within the next few months. Remove all barriers hindering investments into the sector to enhance competitiveness. We’ve had a challenge thrown at us and all of us will have to be careful.

Despite being Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria has recently struggled to meet its OPEC production quotas.

The government has blamed challenges such as pipeline vandalism, oil theft, and operational inefficiencies for the persistent shortfalls.

For instance, in May 2024, crude oil production averaged only 1.25 million barrels per day, well below its OPEC+ quota and the government’s target of 1.7 million bpd for budgetary purposes.

Similarly, Nigeria’s power generation capacity has remained critically low—4.5 gigawatts- which is inadequate for the industrial needs of its over 200 million citizens. This has contributed to frequent power outages and stifling economic productivity.

Nonetheless, Tinubu says his administration is “determined” to partner with the private sector to overcome these hurdles.

“In the face of it, we have the change of energy security; we need to work together to include power, oil and gas to increase our own grid’s electricity. We are determined to do that with your cooperation, collaboration and recommendation,” he said.

The President also emphasised food security, describing it as “essential.” He reminisced on his policies from months ago, saying, “I have declared a state of emergency on food security and we must increase our staple crops by smallholder farmers; we are going to improve on mechanization.”

Citing the Sokoto-Badagry road announced at the last Federal Executive Council meeting on June 25, Tinubu expressed hope that part of his administration’s infrastructural development is “within reach.”

“If you look at the Sokoto-Badagry road, there are about 36 areas dams that we can tap electricity from and generate additional electricity, and help agriculture and create arable farmland.

…Lagos is core jurisdiction for our infrastructural activities —  NSIA

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said on Wednesday that the State is planning to establish a Sovereign Investment Fund for strategic investments into the future.

Governor Sanwo-Olu spoke during a courtesy visit by the Executive Management of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), led by its Managing Director/CEO, Aminu Umar-Sadiq, at Lagos House, Marina.

The Governor charged the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority to consider investing in the Lekki Airport, Rail, Film City and Food Logistics hub projects of the Lagos State Government.

He said, “We, as a subnational, are planning to set up a Sovereign Investment Fund and it is not out of place because we also realised that the Sovereign Fund is critical. It is critical because you can starve yourself a little bit to provide for the future by setting something aside for the future. I think it is always a prudent thing to do. It is not out of place for subnationals to have funds working for today and for the future.

“I am aware you (NSIA) have a massive oncology centre in LUTH (Lagos University Teaching Hospital). We believe Lagos actually requires about four or five of such facilities across the state.

“So, we as a government are planning to support another investor to set up another one so that we can have a way to meet the growing needs of our citizens to reverse medical tourism.

“In Lagos, we pride ourselves on being able to do more if we can get the resources to work with. We have an airport project that we have conceived and are pushing to get financial closure. You can take on the project.

“We also have rail projects (Blue and Red lines) that we have done. There are other rail projects that we’ve designed that will help improve public transportation in Lagos.

“We have Film City in Lagos, which is a massive entertainment city that we are planning to build. It is the future of the creative industry. These are investments we have in Lagos you might look at.”

Speaking earlier, Umar-Sadiq said NSIA is an institution established by law to manage funds on behalf of future generations of Nigerians. He disclosed that the fund last year made about N1.6 trillion in total comprehensive income and N200 billion in terms of core earnings.

He said, “Lagos continues to be the core jurisdiction for a lot of our infrastructural activities. We have a lot of investments and infrastructural development in the areas of health, agriculture, and technology in Lagos State.

“NSIA will continue to ensure that we operationalise ourselves to be essentially the asset manager of choice for both the federal and state governments in Nigeria.

“We will continue to put ourselves forward for use by both state and federal government actors, as the case may be. We can leverage for the benefit of the Centre of Excellence.”

The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mr. Ola Olukoyede has disclosed that public corruption is the bane of development in Nigeria.

He made this disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 while receiving the management team of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, led by its Chairman, Mohammed Bello Shehu who came on a courtesy visit to the Commission.

According to Olukoyede, public corruption ranks as the biggest cause of corruption in Nigeria. He pointed out that if public corruption was taken out of the polity, the country would fare better than many countries of the world.

“A situation where somebody would hold a public office or position of trust for years and you call him to account and he says No,  he would not account, is not acceptable,”  he said.

He stressed that transparency and accountability should be embedded in both the public and private sectors for optimal development of the country.

He decried the magnitude of stealing by corrupt elements in the country, especially stealing of unspent allocation in government agencies.

“When I look at some case files and see the humongous amount of money stolen, I wonder how we are still surviving. If you see some case files you will weep.

“The way they move unspent budget allocation to private accounts in commercial banks before midnight at the end of a budget circle, you will wonder what kind of spirit drives us as Nigerians,” he said.

While noting that corruption posed a huge challenge to the country, Olukoyede expressed optimism that the prevention mechanisms of his leadership would ensure that the Commission stays ahead of the devices of the corrupt to ensure that Nigerians have good governance experiences. He insisted that the preventive framework of tackling corruption offers more prospects of results and impact.  To this end, the EFCC now has a Department of Fraud Risk and Assessment and Control.

The EFCC boss also described corruption in the country as systemic and entrenched, pointing out that the nation would fare better with improved systems of doing things.

“Let’s look at our system of revenue generation. It is a system that allows leakages in mobilisation and appropriation of funds. If we don’t look at the system, we will continue to chase shadows. In this direction, we are not just going to investigate and recover; what we have decided to do in the EFCC is Policy Review.

“If we can block some of these leakages and have a 50 per cent of capital project execution in Nigeria, the country would be fine”, he said.

While assuring RMAFC of enhanced EFCC collaboration, Olukoyede tasked the delegation to continue to support President  Bola Tinubu’s efforts geared towards repositioning the country.

“The President relies on you and me and all the people he has put in a position of trust and responsibility for success,” he said.

Earlier in his address, Shehu lauded the longstanding collaboration between RMAFC and the EFCC and stated that the visit was motivated by the need to explore more areas of collaboration between the two agencies of government, especially in the direction of recovery of unremitted or lost revenues of government.

“It is important to bring to the fore that the collaboration between RMAFC and EFCC is crucial in addressing the challenges of unremitted revenue to the Federation Account. On this note, we are calling on EFCC for more collaboration, not only in the area of enforcement but also intelligence gathering and data sharing as regards government revenue from any source.”

He also called on the EFCC to further assist his Commission in the area of capacity building of its staff on revenue monitoring.