Adedokun Waliyu 
President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, assured the country’s captains of industry that, with his team in place, every negative perception or notion about what Nigeria has represented in the past with respect to the ease of doing business, monetary policy, and trade cooperation has become a thing of the past.
The President said all those bottlenecks are no longer applicable in Nigeria now and in the future of Africa’s largest economy, which he firmly declared is open for business.
Tinubu stpoke at the Nigeria-Saudi Investment Roundtable.
The President, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, was quoted as saying, “I believe in this team that I have brought from Nigeria. When I took office, I declared the immediate commencement of bold and fundamental economic reforms. We have executed them, and we sustain the reform process. Today, I declare that red tape is gone!
“I believe in the full application of free market economics. Your money will flow easily in and easily out. The arbitrage around our nation’s old foreign exchange policy regime and the corruption that was associated with it is also gone!
“We took on those bold endeavours from day one in preparation for serious investors like you seated here. The greatest opportunity for any entity to prosper lies in its human capital.
“My team is prepared. We can produce. Our market is full of Nigerian youths who are brilliant, highly educated, industrious, and passionate about innovation and engagement with world-class services.
“The navigation of the ship of this great nation lies in the membership seated here. We are ready to answer all of your questions directly, even into this night if need be. The sky is not just the limit, but it is the destination for our two countries and peoples.”
Saudi Arabia’s Trade and Investment Minister, Kahlid El-Falih, noted the passion and candid expression of the Nigerian leader, saying that after listening to the President speak from his heart without any written remarks about what is possible between the two nations, Nigerians can expect that the Saudi investment community will respond not in words alone, but with substantial new investment across several sectors of the Nigerian economy.
His Commerce counterpart, Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi, previewed how Saudi Arabia can further contribute to the soft infrastructural reforms needed to unlock game-changing quantums of foreign direct investment in Nigeria.
Chairman of Dangote Industries, Alhaji Aliko Dangote told Saudi investors that Nigeria, under the leadership of Tinubu, will be unearthed to the world as a foremost global investment haven.
A civil servant in Owerri, Imo State capital, has said they were scared and worried about what will happen next, following the strikwe called by the Organised Labour.
