Nigeria on right path Osinbajo
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so there was a genuine effort to ensure that we are able to not just ramp up the production of rice but also milling and we found that the private sector responded to that and we found the big millers wacot and others. dangote is now investing about a million metric tonnes of milling capacity. i think that at this stage agriculture has recorded significant improvement1 vice president yemi osinbajo has said that the administration was on the right path in improving nigerias business environment and diversifying the economy1 osinbajo said that there had been a lot of damage to the environment in terms of business and others but effecting the correction would take a while1 he said that the administration is barely three years old but is focused on doing the right thing1 the moment you have the right people and you put the right structures in place you can do a lot and i think we have been blessed with an incredibly good team1 we wanted us to be much farther ahead in terms of manufacturing. but a lot of these things are also infrastructure constraints that cannot be developed overnight which explains why we are investing heavily in infrastructure1 we focus a great deal on diversifying agriculture manufacturing weve focused on trying to diversify as much as possible and we think that that is the path to go. there is no other way of doing this1 and if you look at the figures there has been tremendous improvement even export of raw materials agriculture produce even manufacturing has improved. i think that we are on the right path. i am convinced that we are going to stay the course1 akande reproduced the interview conducted by mr david pilling the africa editor of financial times on thursday may 31 at eko hotels and suites1 below is the transcript1 first the nature of the crisis of course even beyond low oil prices we were also experiencing considerably reduced oil production. at some point we were producing less than a million barrels of oil per day that being the major source of revenue at the time. but i think that what we did during that period was also very important in bringing the strong outcome that we are seeing today1 in terms of corruption i think that we were able to deal with grand corruption. by that i mean the sort of corruption where you found huge sums of money missing from the treasury and all of that. and because we were able to control grand corruption we were able to do more with far less. so for example we invested n1.3 trillion in 2016 on capital for the very first time in almost 10 years of the countrys economic history1 so if we were able to invest more when oil prices at some point were 50 or 60 than when oil prices were at 110 114 especially on infrastructure and capital im sure anyone could say that there is something wrong with that. i think we managed to do far more with less1 if you look at the different sectors lets take agriculture for example we have recorded very significant growth in agriculture. we are looking to gain at least 3.6 per cent growth in agriculture. that is particularly important to us because in thinking of diversification of our economy agriculture is of course a fitting point and we closed that gap. take rice for example we were importing rice in the order of about 1.6 billion a year which is about 5 million every day. today we are down to impo1 no it is creating the right environment. for example the anchors borrowers programme was an important programme in getting people back to the farms and also which is one very part of this whole process we supported the big millers in being able to increase a lot of the paddy rice that was being produced1 osinbajo made the submission in an interview with the financial timess where he also said that the federal governments investment in infrastructure would improve local manufacturing capacity according to a script of the interview released by mr. laolu akande the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity1 also mining because of the focus on mining growth continued through the recession and growth has continued even now1 we are trying to create the right environment for manufacturing and for business generally. and we took time to focus on the business environment with our ease of doing business initiative and we worked on various areas including access to credit access to registration of title company registration taxation and all of those things1 we looked at all of the different areas in our ease of doing business with a view to making life easier to creating the right environment for manufacturing and for business generally. and weve recorded significant growth and this we are seeing in the growth that we are seeing today1 im sure you are familiar with how our world bank rating went up and we were also considered one of the best reforming countries in the world. of course there has been a lot of damage to the environment in terms of business and all that but correcting that would take a while dont forget that we this administration are barely three years old. and we are focused on doing the right thing.1 i think the one thing we wanted was for us to be much farther ahead in terms of manufacturing. but a lot of these things are also infrastructure constraints that cannot be developed overnight which explains why we are investing heavily in infrastructure rail road and power especially rail. this is the significant part of the investment that we are doing concessioning the lagos-kano to general electric the narrow gauge developing the standard gauge is important in terms of just movement of goods1 nigeria has one of the most vibrant private sectors. manufacturers associations in particular and several others felt that we shouldnt go into this without further consultations and we wanted to know exactly what specifically in terms of negotiations that will follow the signing of the framework. and it was the presidents opinion that it would be much wiser for us to suspend the signing until all of those engagements had been done to the satisfaction of the private sector. we work very closely1 for us it is important to sit back take a look at those negotiations first before heading into the framework which is really what we are doing at the moment. so where we are is that we are looking at the nitty gritty and we are trying to be sure how it is going to play for our private sector people for industry for trade etc. we are not saying we are going to renegotiate the framework the framework is already there. our greater concern is for the specifics. and we are at a point where before we1 first of all let me say that the nature of the security threats is asymmetric coping with it. and this is the same with countries all over the world coping with terrorism is the sort of thing that most countries are grappling with1 i think that we are dealing with that as well. and my take is that the way we are going about it is the right way in other words we are working with partners in the sub-region to ensure that we are able to stem the flow of small arms for example1 we are also working on developing our local capacity. one of the strong initiatives that we are pushing is community policing because a lot of the terrorism that you see are the sorts of opportunistic attacks that require local policing. and one of the strong initiatives that we are pushing is the whole question of the state police more local and community policing and we are working on those initiatives with the governors like in the national economic council which i have the privilege of chair1 for example in benue state we have deployed special forces now to several of the places where we have the disturbances. so it is an ongoing engagement and as i said asymmetric threat of this nature means that we just have to keep planning ahead as much as we can1 if you look at the herdsmenfarmers clashes it is a different type of problem to the issue of boko haram and it has to be dealt with differently. note that this crisis did not start with the buhari government. these clashes have been going on for years. i think we are at a point that we believe that the right response our response has to be robust to ensuring that we are able to keep communities safe which is what is going on. we are doing that in various parts of the north central1 i think that what we are doing is that we are managing our finances far better. today oil prices are about 80 a barrel. our reserves are at 47 billion which is the highest in about 10 years comparable to 2013 when oil prices were higher. so beside the sovereign wealth fund we have invested far more weve almost tripled our investment in the sovereign wealth fund1 i think the question about whether you spend or you dont spend is really more a question of how you manage the resources in the first place. for us i think that the management of resources has been a strong point. i think we have managed our resources well. which explains why we focus a great deal on diversifying agriculture manufacturing. weve focused on trying to diversify as much as possible and we think that it is the path to go. there is no other way of doing this1 and if you look at the figures there has been tremendous improvement in the export of raw materials agriculture produce even manufacturing has improved. i think that we are on the right path. i am convinced that we are going to stay the course1