NASIDA: Driving Nasarawa’s Quiet Industrial Revolution

In the last few years, Nasarawa State has quietly transformed from a sleepy neighbour of the Federal Capital Territory into one of the most talked about investment destinations in North Central Nigeria.

At the centre of this transformation is the Nasarawa State Investment and Development Agency (NASIDA), an agency that has become the engine room of Governor Abdullahi Sule’s economic vision.

NASIDA was established by law in 2020 as the state’s one-stop shop for investors, with a clear mandate to initiate, promote, facilitate and coordinate investment in the state through greenfield projects, public-private partnerships, privatisation, concessions and the commercialisation of state-owned assets, as provided in sections 3 and 4 of the agency’s establishing law.

Since then, the agency has grown from a policy idea into the most visible platform through which Governor Sule’s investment drive is being executed.

Leading this transformation is Ibrahim Abdullahi, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NASIDA, a commercial and investment lawyer who trained at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

Before his appointment, Abdullahi served as the governor’s Special Adviser on Investment and Economic Planning, where he helped design the enabling policy framework that now underpins Nasarawa’s investment climate, and he has continued to head the Nasarawa Economic Development Strategy while serving as secretary of the state’s investment and economic advisory council.

The numbers tell the story of an agency that has moved beyond paperwork into results. At the unveiling of this year’s investment summit, Abdullahi disclosed that Nasarawa State has attracted a cumulative 2.3 billion dollars in foreign and domestic investments since the inception of the Nasarawa Investment Summit in 2022.

Of this, 1.8 billion dollars came in between 2022 and 2024 alongside 1.3 million dollars in technical assistance, while 2025 alone added another one billion dollars, with 505 million dollars of that already actualised. For a state that many investors once overlooked in favour of bigger commercial centres, this is no small achievement.

Much of this success can be traced to the Nasarawa Investment Summit series, which NASIDA introduced as a deliberate strategy to sell the state to the world. The first edition, held in May 2022 under the theme “Diamond in the Rough: The Making of a New Investment Frontier,” was designed not as a ceremonial gathering but as a declaration of intent. It drew the attention of the then Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who described Nasarawa as a state with tremendous potential in agriculture and mining and commended the governor for pushing reforms through the Nasarawa Economic Development Strategy.

On the very first day of that summit, deals worth more than 200 million dollars were sealed, covering gold, lithium, zinc, and rice and sugarcane production in partnership with the Lee Group, while the Nasarawa State Gas Master Plan was also unveiled.

That summit has since grown into a recurring event, with the third edition held this year under the theme “Bold Transitions: Building a Legacy for Sustainable Futures.”

Nowhere is NASIDA’s impact more visible than in the lithium sub-sector, which has turned Nasarawa into a name recognised on the global minerals map. On July 2, 2026, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commissioned the Diamond New Energy lithium processing plant in Endo, Nasarawa Local Government Area, a facility with a processing capacity of 6,000 metric tonnes of lithium per day, representing an investment of about 250 million dollars, and built in collaboration with the Chinese firms Jiuling and Canmax, whose combined global production capacity accounts for more than 20 per cent of the world lithium market.

The plant is widely regarded by stakeholders in the mineral sector as the largest of its kind in West Africa, having created 1,000 direct jobs and 2,000 indirect jobs for young men and women within and outside the state.

It was the second major lithium facility to be commissioned in Endo, coming after Avatar New Energy Materials Company inaugurated Nigeria’s first large-scale lithium processing plant in the same community in 2024.

Investor interest in Nasarawa’s lithium corridor has not slowed since. Governor Sule and the NASIDA management team barely returned to the state after attending the grand opening ceremony of the Jinlide•Qiangyu New Energy Plant in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, China, reaffirming his administration’s commitment to attracting strategic investments that promote industrialization and sustainable economic growth.

It is a continuation of a relationship that began with the governor’s earlier visit to Jiuling Lithium’s headquarters in Fengxin County, an engagement that laid the foundation for the very investments now transforming Endo.

Beyond attracting big-ticket investments, NASIDA has quietly built one of the strongest ease of doing business reform programmes among Nigerian states, and this has come with real financial backing from the World Bank.

Nasarawa is one of the states enrolled in the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER), a three-year performance-based intervention programme designed by the World Bank, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council and the Nigeria Governors Forum to deepen ease of doing business reforms and remove constraints facing small and medium enterprises across the country.

Under this arrangement, disbursements to participating states are tied to specific indicators, meaning Nasarawa must meet clear targets before funds are released, NASIDA serving as the designated coordinating office driving these reforms and working with business-related ministries, departments and agencies to meet the disbursement-linked indicators required for funding.

The results of this discipline are now showing. Governor Sule disclosed at this year’s investment summit that these reforms have positioned Nasarawa State among the top ten most competitive states in Nigeria according to the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking.

Beyond mining, NASIDA has also become the driving force behind public-private partnerships reshaping infrastructure and urban development in the state. A good example is the Nasarawa Technology Village, a flagship project along the Abuja-Keffi Road corridor. Abdullahi has described the project as proof of what collaboration between government and the private sector can achieve, adding that infrastructure development plays a central role in shaping the economic fortunes of nations.

The technology village emerged through a competitive bidding process managed by the agency, which produced the ABS Blueprint Modern Shelter Consortium as the preferred partner for the real estate component of the project.

For Governor Sule, NASIDA represents the practical arm of a vision that places Nasarawa on the path of industrialisation and shared prosperity. Every processing plant commissioned, every summit deal signed, and every reform target met translates into jobs for young people, revenue for government, and confidence for the next set of investors watching Nasarawa from the outside.

As Nasarawa State looks ahead, the achievements of NASIDA offer a clear signal that deliberate policy, consistent leadership and sustained engagement with investors can change the economic fortunes of a state once seen as a quiet neighbour to Abuja.

Under the stewardship of Ibrahim Abdullahi and the broader direction of Governor Abdullahi Sule, NASIDA has proven that it is not just an agency on paper, but a working vehicle steadily turning Nasarawa’s investment promises into industries, jobs and lasting development.

Abare is the SSA on Media to Governor Abdullahi Sule