“Buhari Is Working So Nigeria Won’t Depend On Oil Anymore” …Hajia Aisha Abubakar

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Hajia Aisha Abubakar is the minister of state, Ministry of Trade and Investment. The Sokoto State born politics amazon spoke with Global Excellence’s Kaduna correspondent, ABUBAKAR ABBA, on her office, and the economic policies and programmes of President Muhammadu Buhari. Enjoy…

Tell us some of the measures being taken by the President in terms of
attracting foreign investors into the country.
Well, we have been dependent on oil for so long, but in trying to get
our industries back to create employment and have a good import based economy, we have a lot of things to do. President Muhammadu Buhari is doing everything possible to encourage investors to come into the country and invest. The export processing zone authority, NEPZA promotes free trade, excluding trade barriers and simplification of trade
procedures. We have called on the private sector operators in Nigeria
to interact positively with their foreign counterparts to invest in
the growth and employment generating sectors of the economy. We are also trying to be very careful with the kind of investors that we have. We do not want Nigeria to become a dumping ground. We want people who would come and teach our people and young ones skills and transfer of technology. We don’t want to be buying all the time. We want to learn how to do those things ourselves. Getting investors also takes a process. You can’t just see anybody and say come and invest. You have to negotiate with the government of such countries. We have to negotiate with their embassies. We need to have an understanding of what incentives they want and what they are willing to give. We also have to agree on how long they would stay and so we need to work. I know that we have a desperate situation right now. We just need to take it pace by pace so that we do not make mistakes. We don’t want at the end of our administration for people to say they didn’t do this or that carefully. We are also trying to meet and engage as many stakeholders as possible. The private sectors are our partners. We have to engage them and know what their challenges are.

You talk of attracting investors, but there is poor power supply…
Even though that should be addressed by the ministry of power, we are trying to find an alternative means of power. We are trying to look at how investors can be protected and do their business without any disturbance. We are also trying to see how we can have investors as consortium so that when they come in, we are able to monitor what they are doing. Understand what they are going through the products they are bringing in, whether they are what we need and not just what they want to bring in. So, there are so many things we are doing as a government. I just want to implore that you follow the reforms that we are doing and try
to have an understanding of what it is that we are trying to put in
place. You just try to bear with us. You know things cannot be done in one day. We are heading somewhere.

Tell us more.
The ministry has put in place appropriate policies,
programmes and projects aimed at effectively tackling some of the
constraints facing the industrial sector.