Vice-President Kashim Shettima has urged foreign investors to take advantage of the numerous opportunities in Nigeria, assuring them that the country is ready for business.
A statement by the Director, Information, Office of the Vice-President, Olusola Abiola said Senator Shettima made the call in remarks at the sidelines of the ongoing UN Food Systems Summit.
The theme of the summit is “Scaling up of multi-stakeholder collaboration and investments in the implementation of the food systems pathways in Nigeria”.
The vice-president said the combination of Nigeria’s young, energetic population and the agenda of the new administration placed the country far ahead of others in the region.
” We have the capacity of transforming the demographic bulge into demographic dividends or it will be the demographic disaster that will consume all of us,” He told the gathering.
“Nigeria will surpass the United States as the third most populous nation on earth and the population is young. The median age is 19,” he noted.
“With determined leadership and the support of the global community, we believe, as eternal optimists do, that there is hope in the horizon.”
The VP also expressed hope that the expected transformation could take place on the back of what he described as “building-blocks that already exist in Nigeria”.
On improving collaboration between government and the private sector, Vice-President Shettima said focusing on agribusiness and the understanding that investment that would transform food system would come from the private sector, with the government providing the enabling environment, would scale up investment.
” Nigerian government, together with domestic and international finance institutions, scaled up the Value Chain Development Programme approach for the Special Agro Processing Zones Programme with an impressive investment of $521 million from the IFAD, from the IsDB, and from the AfDB,” He explained.
Present at the event were Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to FAO/IFAD/WFP in Rome, Yaya Olaniran; Nigerian Ambassador to Italy, Mfawa Abam; Deputy Chief of Staff to the President in the Office of the Vice-President, Ambassador Ibrahim Hadejia, among other senior government officials.
