Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you very much for creating time this day to receive, for the first time, briefing from me on behalf of the Growth & Development of Northern Nigeria (GDNN), an entity Incorporated as a Limited by Guarantee on the 7th July, 2022 with Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa (May his soul rest in peace) as our pioneer Chairman whom we lost on the 3rd of January 2022. GDNN was inaugurated as an Association of citizens of the Region concerned about its development challenges in October 2017 in Kaduna.
Our current Caretaker Chairman after the demise of Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa is Alh. Abdullahi Ibrahim Halilu supported by a Steering Committee. Our Head Office is in Kaduna.
Objectives of Growth and Development of Northern Nigeria Ltd/GTE
The following are some of the objectives of GDNN:
Promoting and Facilitating Investment in Northern Nigeria;
To be handled under the Invest-In-Northern Nigeria Limited,
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for Economic & Social Transformation of the Northern Region of Nigeria.
Public Policy Advocacy;
To be handled by a Special Unit within the GDNN to which I am the Acting Secretary,
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR);
To be handled under The Northern Nigeria Development Fund which is already an Incorporated entity to be launched at the appropriate time; and
Any other activity that will promote the well-being of the Region of Northern Nigeria.
Consistent with the above objectives, and in particular our responsibility under Public Policy Advocacy I have been mandated by the 17th Meeting of the Steering Committee of the advocacy I have been mandated by the 17th Meeting of the Steering Committee of the GDNN of Monday January 6th, 2025 to brief you on the following;
The GDNN Steering Committee (SC) deliberated on the progress of it’s three key projects under consideration, namely, but not limited to;
The Queen Amina University in Kaduna, of which the Kaduna State Government has made available 60-Hectres of land for the project and for which the GDNN is grateful to His Excellency Gov. Sen. Uba Sani.
The Pyramid Commodity Exchange Limited, & The Participatory Bank Project and was satisfied with the progress being made on each of them. It also made additional far-reaching recommendations to Government on topical economic and social issues as follows;
The GDNN welcomes, commends Government and supports fully the Foreign Currency Voluntary Disclosure, Deposition, Repatriation and Investment Scheme issued under the Executive Order No. 15 of 2023. The GDNN views this as, not only encouraging but a welcome development that is not inconsistent with the Wealthy Nigerians Initiative process initiated during President Olusegun Obasanjo and launched by late President Umaru Musa ‘Yar Adua on which President ‘Yar Adua inaugurated a Committee made up of the EFCC, ICPC and the NIPC as the Chair to generate a database of such Wealthy Nigerians within and outside the country with a view to arranging special audience for each of the identified Wealthy Nigerians with Mr. President to secure or extract a commitment by each one of them to invest in identified Key Growth Sectors of the Economy.
The Plan, the GDNN noted was to deploy these resources into investments in key Infrastructure, Development Institutions, Research and Development and Key Competitiveness Driver Sectors. We in the GDNN see this as an opportunity for Government to harvest the huge benefits in the Initiative to migrate completely from borrowing to using these Resources as (Foreign Direct Investment) FDI Capital inflow and substitute and acceleration for development.
The GDNN recommends that lobby of these Wealthy Nigerians and diplomacy is key in this effort and humility on the part of Mr. President in attracting these Wealthy Nigerians will do more in encouraging many such types to come forward. We must expunge bureaucracy completely from this initiative if it must succeed and substitute it with diplomacy.
The gates of the Office of Mr. President must be open and receptive to stream these important Nigerians for an audience. This project requires a Special Team to handle and not left to an “Executive Order Document” alone.
The GDNN welcomes with anxiety and commends Government on the creation of the Ministry for Livestock Development.
We, however, noted that it fell short of integrating Dairy Development to make it complete, comprehensive and most effective. We are accordingly inviting the attention of Government on the need to scale up its mandate to include Dairy Development and rename the Ministry as Ministry for Livestock and Dairy Development.
The GDNN also notes that, as members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in current Account difficulties we are entitled to write to the World body, of which Nigeria is a Founding Member, and seek exemption of compliance of relevant Clauses over a period of time convenient to our recovery plan to enable us to adjust to a status commensurate with the actual value of our currency as against what we are currently struggling to stabilize.
However, it appears very clearly to the GDNN that absence of sufficient brief about this, has only pushed the Government further into doing the exact opposite! The World Trade Organization (WTO) can be of tremendous assistance to Nigeria in instilling discipline in our management of our prevailing Current Account difficulties without infringing on our obligations in our Membership of the World Trading Body, but at the same time guiding us on how to manage to swim successfully to safety than continue to sink deeper and deeper into difficulties each day we take the wrong decisions that we keep believing that only persons with knowledge of economics can help the country solve our current “economic” problems. It requires a multi -Professional and multi-sectoral approach and engagement to arrive at a workable consensus.
The GDNN also recommends to Government that the Solid Minerals Mining Sector will benefit a lot from being exposed to the same model the Oil & Gas Sector was, and still is, subjected to in which sufficient Data on these minerals were generated and Mining Blocks in OPL and OML are charted all over the Country and either Auctioned or exposed to Joint Ventures, under Joint-Venture Cash Calls Model, with Host Communities as part owners and ultimate beneficiaries in knowledge, technology and the proceeds of the investments and through that we will bring sanity into the sector as against the hey-where situation it is left to. The Wealth beneath our soil is beyond what can be quantified and only through an organized mining process we can harvest the tremendous benefits in the Mining Sector outside the Oil & Gas to the additional benefit of the Nigerian economy.