President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has said that the recent investment of £746 million attracted by President Bola Tinubu on his 2-day state visit to the United Kingdom (UK) showed the confidence of the British authorities in the Nigerian economy.
Dangote, who said this while responding to questions after a meeting with the President in his Lagos home on Monday, also said the investment would further encourage other countries to invest in Nigeria.
Responding to the volatility of fuel price, its attendant inflation and consequences on the masses owing to the crisis in middle east with the war against Iran by United States and Israel, Dangote said people’s should just pray for the de-escalation of the hostilities, otherwise, the price of fuel could continue on the upward swing.
Commenting on the significance of the UK’s investment, Dangote said “I think it has opened ways. Today, diplomacy without the economic part of it is not complete.
“So I believe his visit will open quite a lot of doors and you can see the agreement that was signed for actually improving our infrastructure, especially in the ports and other areas, which is almost £746 million, that’s quite a lot. It’s not that easy dealing with British, getting this kind of money out of them.
“They too, they are struggling on their own. But I think this to show confidence, it’s not about the money, it’s s about the confidence in Nigeria.
“So the moment they do that, there will be other countries that will follow suit. So it’s not the £746 million, we too can do that to any other country and invest.
“But I think it is something to show an appreciation of Mr. President’s good work, the infrastructure he has been building, this will help and complement, but there will be other countries that will do. Germany will come, others… so they will line up and start coming now. This is supposed to be a win-win situation.”
On how Nigerian investors could benefit from the facilities, he said “For Nigerian investor it has shown that we can also go to the same agency and tap the resources.
“It means that the agency now is open for business for Nigerians, and we will go as private people to go and look for them to give us support. It’s a credit agency, which we haven’t really tapped those resources for very long time.
“So I think with what has happened now. It shows that there is capacity for them to fund some of our projects.”
On the volatility in the oil sector, the bus iess mogul said “It means quite a lot. We don’t have much to do with it, but you know the world is a global village, and it definitely will affect us, unfortunately. But we pray this situation will be sorted out, it’s not going to escalate. If it doesn’t de-escalate, we’ll end up paying big prices.
“Like what I said earlier on to CNN, if you look at it today, Africa is very busy paying debts and putting this again on top of us is going to add a lot of hardship on the government, on the people, on everybody, for something that we have no, really, any involvement in.
“If you look at it now, when you talk about energy, energy affects almost everything and it’s not only energy, some people will try and take a chance and say this an opportunity so let me make money.
“So if this thing doesn’t de-escalate, it is going to keep going up and up and up and governments cannot really now go and add salaries. So people will really feel the heat. People like barbers, people who are making bread, people who have industries, who have to fire their own generators.
“I mean, you can see, in some countries today what they’ve done is ask everybody to work from home because they cannot… I think in Indonesia or so, they said only go to work four days a week and they will look at the situation, if it doesn’t improve, they will ask everybody not to go to work anymore. We did that in the time of COVID-19.”
