Nigeria has intensified its quest for more investments from foreign firms in its drive to diversify its economy from the non-oil sector as the country appears poised to throw its investment windows open for companies from Singapore.
This development emerged during a meeting of top officials of both countries in Abuja on Thursday, whose purpose is to strengthen the cordial relations that exist between the two nations.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dunoma Ahmed met Dr. Maliki Osman, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore, who led a delegation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this collaborative effort.
Dumoma was emphatic about the intention of Nigeria to draw companies from Singapore to invest in mining, agriculture, renewable energy to boost the sectors for job creation and value addition to Nigeria’s GDP.
He said “We want to also appreciate the presence of some Singaporean companies in Nigeria and they are contributing to job creation and the GDP of the country. And we request for more Singaporean companies to come and invest in Nigeria because the government of Tinubu is diversifying the economy and moving towards the non-oil sector especially into mining, agriculture, renewable energy and others.
“Your companies can take advantage of the business opportunities that exist in the country. Companies like Olam, Wilma, Indorama, toleram and Pacific International are doing very well. Nigeria is now a good business destination that can accommodate Singaporean companies because we have the enabling environment. “
The existing relations were also boosted when the Nigerian side submitted a draft MoU on technical and vocational training for the mutual benefit of our two countries, which will also entail engagement on youth empowerment.
Under the auspices of the Singapore Cooperation Programme for Technical Assistance, there are capacity building courses that are being offered by the Singaporean government where about 700 Nigerian government officials have so far benefitted from.
Singapore has continued to enhance trade relations with Nigeria even as it facilitated the hosting of study tours being embarked by the Nigerian Defence College and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies.
However, it is disturbing that a country that wants to boost business relations with Nigeria will, according to the Permanent Secretary, downgrade Nigeria’s mission as was done by the Singaporean Foreign Ministry, which dictated the level of officers that Nigeria should send to the country.
“It is really unprecedented in international interaction between two countries for a country to insist that only a certain level of officers be posted. I think we should look at that and convey our concerns to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore,” Dunoma said.
The Singaporean Minister, Osman said the delegation was in Nigeria to establish new frontiers for deepening bilateral relations between both countries in the area of youth development.
He said. “We agree that there are many new areas of opportunities for young people and Nigeria, a country with a young population within the middle age of 17-years shows great potential for manpower development.
“Singapore has gone through very fast paced development and we have seen how important it is for human development, as a key driving force that is naturally what Singapore was like.
“We are a country with little natural resources and human resources are the only resources we have, our experience in human capacity development is something we can share with our Nigerian counterparts.
“I will be meeting the Minister of Education to further discuss our potential collaboration.
“There is a proposal on technical vocational training for Nigerian young people and we are looking at those proposals, to see how we can advance relationships through support to our Nigerian counterparts.”
Osman, who is also Second Minister of Education and Foreign Affairs of Singapore, further promised to prioritise the capacity building of government officials, saying Singapore had a cooperation programme in such regard.
“This includes a recently announced special package for our friends in the African continent under the Singapore African Partnership.
“This provides opportunities for us to customise training programmes in areas that our friends seem necessary.
“Counterparts from different ministries in Nigeria can tell us what aspects they can learn from us, as long as we can share our experiences.
“We will be happy to customise those training programmes. We also provide tailor made programmes and priority allocation to officials from Nigeria, and other African countries based on programmes that exist.
“We also provide post-graduate scholarships for senior officials to come to Singapore to study at a post-graduate level; we are happy to journey with Nigeria on capacity building,” he added.
Nigeria appears ripe for investment but it remains to be seen how much of that opportunity will be exploited to grow the country’s economy especially in this harsh period that the country is facing dwindling fortunes.
