The roll call, per ‘The Punch’ newspaper, at the just-concluded ‘Invest in Lagos 3.0′ Summit’, was impressive: the federal and six state governments, global institutions, innovators, development finance bodies, sovereign wealth funds, finance specialists, multilateral institutions and a trade network across the Commonwealth countries.
The quantum and spread were no surprise. Lagos is an economic hub of national example – the way its policies segue with the booming needs of its estimated 25 million population – as its trade summits are an excellent mart for others to showcase their potentials; and pitch for putative investors.
That the Federal Government and six state governments were at the mart, seeking investors to partner in their areas of core opportunities, is also bowing to the not-so-new truism: the era of the government providing jobs is over. This epoch belongs to the government creating policies to make the private sector thrive.
Host Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, addressing the parley, gave his state’s own investor preference: basically infrastructure spanning rail and water transport, aside from energy; then, agriculture and agro-processing.
With the construction of the Green Rail (Marina-Victoria Island-Lekki) just starting, and the many other lines in the Lagos Urban Rail still pending, private capital will do rather nicely. Water transport is another niche, in the state’s multi-modal transport policy, which investors can milk.
Still, a yawning surprise: the governor was silent on waste-driven investments. Post-1999 Lagos got rid of the many mountains of filth that plagued the city. But that system currently frays at the edges – if not completely ruptured – with the ugly and smelly diffusion of wastes in the Lagos public space: road medians, expressway drainage and open spaces near markets!
To avert an epidemic by waste, which might cripple its booming market, Lagos needs urgent and expanded investment in waste disposal and management. It’s a cross-sectoral imperative that should come under public health and citizen wellness. If not, these wastes might just blight Lagos and its huge market.
Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, pitched his state’s new-found capacity to deliver 24-hour electricity, in some areas in Abia, to sell its market clusters to willing investors. Imo State’s Hope Uzodinma spoke of a putative industrial revolution powered by new, lithe but robust infrastructure.
Nasarawa’s Abdullahi Sule’s pull was the proximity of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as a magnet for investors to consummate his state’s mechanised farmlands, crops and livestock, leveraging its vast land resources. The Federal Government too, thirsting for capital for many of its programmes, which the routine yearly budget cycle cannot adequately feed, flaunted the business-friendliness of its new, far-reaching tax reforms.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, re-pledged the central government’s commitment to creating a conducive business environment all-round.
But all of these points only underscore the very basics: business summits won’t amount to much, if the responding investors don’t enjoy robust business-friendly policies. In competitiveness, the cost and availability of power are critical. So, Governor Otti, pitching regular and predictable power supply, was spot on.
In Lagos too, sanity on the electricity supply and demand front has forced the ongoing liberalisation of competing distribution companies (DisCos) and generation companies (GenCos), aside from the flagship twins of Ikeja Electric and Eko DisCo. It is also behind the push, by the Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission (LASERC), for aggressive customer metering, within the Lagos electricity market.
How these new electricity reforms work out, in the next three years, will determine the success – or otherwise – of Lagos 3.0 Summit. Of course, another leg (no less critical) is a better security horizon nationwide.