By Egena Sunday Ode
Beyond the regular activities listed for his participation at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), President Bola Tinubu will be deeply engaged in programmes that will attract the much needed investments that will tame the rising unemployment in the country, the presidency has said.
President Tinubu is scheduled to depart for New York on Sunday for the annual global event.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, who disclosed this to newsmen on Friday, declared that with the sideline programmes listed for Tinubu’s participation, he would certainly be one of the busiest and most sought-after president at this year’s edition of UNGA.
Some of the sideline events, according to Ngelale, include meetings with American, South African and Brazilian Preaidents as well as chief executives of multinational organizations such as Microsoft, ExxonMobil, General Electric among others.
Ngelale said: “As you’re very well aware, on Sunday, His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be departing Abuja for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly of 2023.
“Of course, aside from the engagements he’s going to be having at the General Assembly, aside from the act of participation that the Nigerian delegation will be engaging in at the assembly, there are a series of very important side activities that will have wide ranging ramifications on the Nigerian economy.
“As you are well aware following Mr. President’s very successful trip to New Delhi for the G-20, and the staggering amount of investment he has been able to attract to Nigeria in a very short period of time, he is going to continue advancing very aggressively on his economic development, diplomatic drive, to aggressively attract foreign direct investments into the country.
“So with that, I would like to inform you that His Excellency Mr. President will be having the following meetings with major chief executives and leaders of multinational firms, cutting across multiple sectors of the economy.
“The President will be meeting with the President of the Microsoft company worldwide, Brad Smith, with respect to how we can deepen digital transformation in the country, and how we can expand the digital economic footprints in the country to ensure that our micro and small enterprises will have access to the internet and have access to other smart technologies that will facilitate their ability to transact business quickly and efficiently.
“Mr. President will also be meeting with Sir Nick Clegg who is the president of Global Affairs for Meta technologies, that is expected to be a wide ranging conversation with respect to how we can leverage on new innovations such as Artificial Intelligence and certain other applications to impact the way we do business in Nigeria.”
He continues: “His Excellency, Mr. President, will also be meeting with the global CEO of General Electric. Of course, the General Electric is a very well known international organization that cuts across multiple sectors, they have very deep involvement in the energy sector electric power generation, aviation, you know, engine production for multiple modes of transportation, amongst many other inputs. So we expect that to be a very important interaction.
“Furthermore, His Excellency Mr. President will be meeting with the global CEO of Exxon Mobil Oil and Gas Company. We see this as a major opportunity to once again lay out in detail what Nigeria has on offer with respect to the implementation of the petroleum industry Act and the fiscal and tax incentives that are being put forward by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to further advance investment in the oil and gas sector not just in terms of oil, but more in terms of gas.
“But, even in the oil sector, are looking very closely at what we can do in the deep offshore and some of the associated opportunities in that sphere.
“Again, these are just a one-on-one meetings with these delegations. These are just a few of them. His Excellency Mr. President will be participating in the Africa Global Business Initiative, essentially, another platform that’s more like a roundtable where you’re going to have lucrative enterprises, high level chief executives from around the world, that are wanting to listen in on what African leaders, with particular attention to the Nigerian president, what he has to say in terms of the opportunities available to invest in Nigeria across sectors, that’s going to be another major opportunity.
“The President will also be presiding over an event, that is the Nigeria Small and Medium Scale Business Summit. And this is really a very strategic one. The President is determined to ensure that we don’t just look at large industry, that we key in on opportunities that are being presented by Nigerian owned small and medium scale enterprises, putting our own MSMEs in a position to make an impact in foreign markets.
“Yes, the President is focused on attracting foreign direct investment, attracting jobs, attracting new tax revenues into the shores of our country. But he’s also focused in on making sure that homegrown Nigerian companies have fair and equal access to foreign and international markets.
“This is a major aspect of the kind of wealth creation that Mr. President envisions in his renewed hope agenda. So we are going to do everything we can to support Nigerian small, micro and medium scale enterprises as they look to expand their operations beyond the shores of Nigeria and that is what that summit is intending to do.
“In addition to that, the President will be speaking at the UN High Level reform of the global financial architecture. This is sequel to the engagement Mr. President had in Paris. It will essentially allow our president to lay out his vision for a fairer international financial system that does not any longer leave out developing countries from the decision making table.
“He’s very determined to drive this and he’s leading it from the front and that’s a very important engagement on his schedule.
“Aside from that, there will be two major summits at the UN. Aside from of course, general debate at the General Assembly, which is one, the UN 2023 summit on SDGs the sustainable development goals at which Mr. President will be very actively participating.
“And there will also be the UN Secretary General’s climate ambition Summit, at which Mr. President will be laying out his plans in concrete details for Nigeria’s energy transition and the role that our partners in the business community and foreign governments and nongovernmental organisations will play in the actualization of Nigeria’s ambition to get to net zero by 2060.
“The last point I want to make is on His Excellency Mr. President’s schedule of bilateral meetings. The President, again, focusing in on his economic development diplomacy will be having investments at the front and center of his conversations with his counterparts around the world.
“ And these engagements include bilateral meetings on the sidelines, with the President of the United States, with the President of Comoros, with the President of South Africa, with the President of the European Union Commission, with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, with the King of Jordan, with the Algerian President, with the Brazilian President and with the Spanish Prime Minister. It’s still dynamic.
“There are some that will still be added, but it’s fair to say that within a very short few days in New York, His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will certainly be one of the most active and one of the most sought after heads of state with respect to his engagements in both bilateral and multilateral platforms.”
