Members of the Nsukka Professionals Association (NPA) recently hosted the third edition of the NPA Annual Summit, with the theme “Positioning for a Post-oil National Economy,” in Lagos.
Organised by Brandzone Consulting LLC, the event brought together professionals, policymakers, investors and academics across the different industry value chains.
The managing director of Zebra Energy, founding member/fellow, Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, Dr. Steve Okolo, was the chairman of the third NPA annual summit. In his opening remarks, he noted that the theme was carefully selected and was aimed at being used to create a platform to discuss key solutions and better positioning of Nigeria’s economy, in view of the huge downturn in the oil market, which is the major contributor to the nation’s revenue.
Said he: “The drastic change in the global oil market, which impacted negatively on the nation’s economy, is a call for a diversification of the economy into other virgin sectors for a strong growth and continuous economic advancement.”
Okolo further asserted that the Nsukka Professionals Association was strongly committed to creating ideas that would aid economic growth and development in the South-East region and, ultimately, Nigeria, leveraging on its vast network of professionals.
The keynote speaker at the summit was the MD/CEO, Zinox Technologies, who was represented by the CEO of Activedge Technologies, George Agu, an engineer. In his address, he said that the nation has to reduce its dependence on oil to build a stronger labour force of highly-skilled individuals. He emphasised the need to maximise the potential of other industries such as information and communication technology, manufacturing and agriculture, to establish the nation’s growth.
Agu cited the evolutionary shift in statistics of the world’s richest companies from the likes of ExxonMobil (being number 1 at the time), General Electric, Gastron, Citi Group, Bank of America, Shell and HSBS in 2006 to the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook, ExxonMobil (which dropped to the fourth position), Amazon, Microsoft and China Mobile in 2016. He submitted that harnessing technology would accelerate the growth of Nigeria’s economy.
Other high calibre professionals who spoke on the summit included the founder of Kenna Partners, professor at the Lagos Business School, Fabian Ajogwu; group managing director, Afrinvest West Africa, Ike Chioke, represented by the deputy managing director, Afrinvest West Africa, Victor Ndukauba; co-founder, Sahel Consulting, and AACE Foods, Ndidi Nwuneli; Provost, Air Force Institute of Technology, Kaduna, Professor Emmanuel Ezugwu, and MD/CEO, BIC Consulting Services, Dr. Boniface Chizea.
Ajogwu noted at the summit: “The post-oil economy is not a situation where Nigeria waits for oil to vanish but one in which the country rapidly develops other sources of income to outperform oil as it is and achieve a gross domestic product greater than what oil has provided the economy.”
He also observed that there is currently a notably high level of human capital migration from Nigeria to other countries with better economies, especially Canada. He said the countries are benefitting from the taxes generated by these individuals, whereas Nigeria is experiencing a gradual depletion of human capital and hence its tax-generated revenue. He further stated that consistent focus on capital projects would also help grow Nigeria’s economy.
Victor Ndukauba, during the plenary deliberations, asserted that the South-East region could contribute immensely to the growth of the country by creating quality infrastructure that would empower the population of the region and, by extension, the nation. He also said that the development of the South-East would create jobs and reduce the rate of migration of its indigenes to Lagos and other big cities for the purpose of better standard of living.
Ezugwu, in his contribution, stressed the need for the government to invest in the ICT sector, which he said has been playing a key role in the growth and sustainability of the world’s leading economies. He suggested that, as a form of human capital investment, government could fund the training of young people overseas in ICT skill. This, he said, would provide the youth with the required exposure so that they can come back to the country and train others.
He further said: “We need to have a paradigm shift in our educational system. ICT should be brought into the educational system and young people should be able to develop apps appropriate to their disciplines.”
Also speaking, Ndidi Nwuneli argued that agriculture could also play a huge role in the development of the nation’s economy.
“Agriculture is a low-hanging fruit that will not only create wealth but create jobs in Nigeria,” she said.
She noted that agricultural products like cashew nuts and the Nsukka yellow pepper exist in abundance in the South-East, even as she regretted that some of these rich natural products that have immense investment potential are not being sufficiently exploited. She added that, apart from the utilisation of agriculture as an avenue to grow the nation’s GDP, the South-East region should claim ownership of these products and their full proliferation, while heralding their uniqueness to the rest of the world.
She encouraged all stakeholders at the summit to also invest in revamping the face of education in the South-East for stronger development of the region.
Speaking on the true purpose of the summit, the president of NPA, Mr. Charles Nwodo Jnr., said the summit was designed to draw attention of policymakers and political leaders at all levels to the inevitability of the disruption of the global oil market and expected progressive reduction in the revenue accretion to the federation account.
On what the government should take note of, he said: “The essential thing is the realisation, to have the realisation, that this is something that is coming and sit down with critical stakeholders with the various units to identify and harness economically-viable assets that can help the government generate revenues aside from oil.”
He added that: “Apart from the prices of crude oil falling in the international market and affecting our revenue, there is also the disruption brought about by technological innovations in models like electric cars, which are now commercially available. If no cars are going to be using petrol and no airplanes are going to be using them either, oil will no longer be a viable asset as we know it today.”