WEF: Nigeria, Africa Are Investment Destinations – Shettima

Vice President Kashim Shettima has called on investors to take advantage of Nigeria and Africa’s growing investment climate.

Naija News reports that Senator Shettima stated this on Tuesday during a forum titled, “Roadmap to Co-create Investment Opportunities for Africa’s Frontier Markets,” at the ongoing annual meeting of the 2025 World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland.

The session which was co-chaired by the Managing Director of WEF, Mirek Dusek,  and chaired by the Senior Vice President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Marie-Laure Akin Olugbade, focused on the Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Roadmap for Africa.

He called on stakeholders to disregard stories of doom by propagandists against the country and the continent.

The Vice President noted that Nigeria was poised to invade the global business platform with modernization and robust investments, assuring that President Bola Tinubu was working to make the nation an investment destination in Africa.

“For 20 years, I have been in the Nigerian banking industry. I was a general manager in Nigeria’s largest bank, Zenith Bank. I grew up in that ecosystem.

“The President himself is a seasoned chartered accountant. So, I believe that Nigeria is ready for business, Nigeria is ready to embrace the path of modernization with very robust investment,” he declared.

He said though the nation may still have certain deficits, Nigeria was looking up to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to address the challenges.

“We are having a huge deficit but we are looking forward to the AfCFTA and that involves investing in infrastructure for instance the coastal highway from Calabar to Lagos is the largest single investment in Africa. We are building corridors to the North.

“We have the West African gas pipeline. We are thinking ahead of time akin to the Belt and Road Initiative. We are partnering with 14 African countries to invest in gas infrastructure down to Morocco,” he stated.

Likening Napoleon Bonaparte’s opinion about China to the case of Africa, he said, “So, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the stories you hear about Africa are not that of doom and gloom. From DRC to Somalia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire, Africa is waking up from its slumber.

“I remember what Napoleon Bonaparte said about China, he said ‘China is a sleeping giant but when she wakes up, she will rattle the world’. So, Africa has woken up and we will take our rightful place in the comity of nations because as I said earlier, the trajectory of global growth is facing Africa. We are the youngest continent.”

Also drawing a leaf from the late Nigerian head of state, General Murtala Mohammed, Shettima said Africa has come of age and can no longer be treated like an adolescent.

“I want to quote Murtala Mohammed, a Nigerian military leader at an extraordinary summit of the OAU, about 50 years ago. He said “Africa has come of age, it is no longer under the orbit of any extra-continental power, and it shall no longer take orders from any country, however powerful,” he concluded.