The Federal Government on Wednesday said Nigeria has 23 companies each generating more than $1bn in annual revenue and will seek to expand their operations across the continent at the Africa CEO Forum, holding in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.
- +23 Nigerian firms earn over $1bn annually, target continental expansion — FG
It said this is evident as more Nigerian banks are acquiring assets in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire, its oil firms are announcing new East African refineries, and manufacturers are opening factories in Nairobi.
It said this is evident as more Nigerian banks are acquiring assets in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire, its oil firms are announcing new East African refineries, and manufacturers are opening factories in Nairobi.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, said this on Wednesday, as President Bola Tinubu arrived in Kigali for the Africa CEO Forum.
Oduwole, who spoke to journalists shortly after Tinubu landed in Rwanda on the final leg of a three-nation trip spanning Paris, Nairobi and Kigali, said the continental expansion of Nigerian businesses was concrete proof that three years of difficult macroeconomic reforms had built investor confidence sufficient to drive outward investment rather than capital flight.
She said, “We have about 23 business champions that gross over a billion dollars in revenue per annum.
“These are investors that are investing not just in Nigeria but across the continent. Zenith Bank just had an acquisition in Kenya.
“They had another acquisition last week in Côte d’Ivoire. You see Nigerian financial services, Nigerian manufacturing, Nigerian oil and gas really spreading across the continent.”
She listed Nigerian business titans who had sat alongside heads of state at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi the day before, co-hosted by Kenyan President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron, as evidence that Nigeria’s private sector was now operating at the highest continental table.
“We had Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Dr Rabiu, Aig-Imoukhuede, Tony Elumelu, Kola Karim. These are investors that are investing not just in Nigeria. You heard Dangote’s announcement for Kenya, the commitment he has made to East Africa for another refinery there.
“We have companies like SecureID, which exports to about 22 African countries, and opened a factory in Nairobi, which I also visited earlier this week.
“So you have Nigerians scaling outside of our country. We are creating jobs elsewhere, investing, and of course remitting taxes back home.”
Oduwole argued that this was an intended outcome of the Tinubu administration and not a coincidence.
“You don’t do this when you don’t have confidence in the policies of the administration, in how the macroeconomics have been stabilised, in the inflation, the exchange rate, the certainty, the transparency.
“All the work of the last three years is now translating into growth, and the signals are coming through,” she said.
Shortly after arriving in Kigali, Tinubu held a bilateral meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Oduwole described the session as “very, very cordial,” describing both leaders as co-champions on digital trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area framework.
“They talked about the importance of accelerating the pace at which we are trading. We are also in talks with Rwandan Airways to see how Nigerian businesses can export more of their goods across the continent,” she said, adding that Nigeria had signed an air cargo corridor arrangement with Uganda Airways the previous year as part of the same continental connectivity drive.
The Kigali trip is Tinubu’s third stop in his three-nation tour, which began in Paris, where he met global investors, including representatives of Citibank, Amundi, BlueCrest and US fund groups.
From Paris, he flew to Nairobi for the Africa Forward Summit, where he spoke on green industrialisation and capital consolidation on the continent before approximately 40 African and French CEOs.
On domestic reforms, the minister highlighted the National Single Window as the most symbolically significant ease-of-doing-business achievement of the term, precisely because it had eluded governments for decades.
Oduwole said, “That is an intervention that has defeated administration over administration.
“The President announced it in April 2024 and by March this year, Phase One was rolled out.
“What that does is ensure that as a trading nation, what you are importing and exporting is processed through a single portal, and it has been very, very well received by the private sector.”
She also pointed to port reforms at Apapa and Tin Can, which she described as piggybacking on commitments made during Tinubu’s recent UK state visit.
She cited the coastal road, rail and road infrastructure projects, the Securities and Investment Act and the new tax architecture as a compounding set of structural reforms now yielding visible results.
On taking the AfCFTA programme below the federal level, Oduwole said the ministry had recently launched a subnational tour in Kano covering the North-West.
“We are going around regions in Nigeria to train, practicalise, and share with state governments and local governments how each local government can have one product that will be exported across Africa,” she said.
The Africa CEO Forum, which runs May 14 and 15 in Kigali, will bring together chief executives and global investors to deliberate on capital mobilisation, trade and continental economic integration.
