President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has urged private investors in the nation’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors to help build the nation’s economy.
Dangote who lamented over dependence of the economy on oil to the detriment of other viable sectors, called on Nigerian and international businessmen to lead in the task of diversifying the economy, say doing so is the only viable option to the current economic quagmire.
Addressing a select group of business executives in Lagos on the new initiatives of his Pan African conglomerate, Dangote saidit has become apparent that Nigeria needed to move away from a monolithic economy that thrives only on trading of oil and gas.
He said a situation in which state governments could not meet their obligation to their workforce, and the Federal Government is not having enough resource to meet its obligations, calls for drastic steps to be taken to move the economy away from its present one sector dominance to other areas like agriculture, mining and manufacturing.
He said apart from building a refinery and a petrochemical, the Dangote Group is also veering into fertilizer plant construction to help the agric sector, while on the other hand,it has also invested heavily in rice cultivation.
He explained that all these ventures are capital intensive, but with prospects for massive job opportunities which Nigeria needs at this time.
He urged Nigerians to see the current challenges as a passing phase, adding that it would make the country to be e economically stronger in the future.
He expressed his abiding faith in Nigeria as an economically viable nation, saying that Nigeria remains the destination of choice for investments despite the challenges.
Said he: “I have always said it that Nigeria is a good place to investment. God has given us in Nigeria which many other countries don’t have and they keep searching for it. We have got fertile land for agriculture, we have the minerals resources and we have oil. All we need to do is to harness them for our good.
“The present challenges we are facing should not deter us from growing our economy. It shouldn’t stop us from investing. It’s just a passing phase. Other countries that we refer to as developed started from somewhere. They all experienced some of these challenges in the past. So I want us to see these challenges as obstacles towards attaining greatness.”
Dangote told the Business executives that it was for this reasons that he had continued investing in Nigeria’s economy because “If Nigerians do not invest in their country, other people would not come. They will want to see our success story before they can come,” he stated.
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