Caption: Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone and Tony Elumelu at the meeting on Wednesday.
Ahead of next month’s inaugural West Africa Integration and Investment Summit (WAIIS) in Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone and Tony Elumelu, on Wednesday in Lagos urged domestic investors in the sub-region to help unlock her huge investment potentials to create jobs for millions of the youthful population.
Speaking at the inaugural physical meeting of its Private Sector Advisory Board comprising investors and executives of financial institutions, hosted by Elumelu, both men, co-chairs of WAIIS said the summit is part of efforts to accelerate capital mobilisation and integrate the sub-region, redirect the sub-regional body to its founding philosophy 50 years ago.
Addressing members of the WAIIS Advisory Board at the meeting, co-chaired along with Elumelu, President Bio, who also chairs the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Authority of Heads of State and Government, described the various stakeholders as “partners in execution (who should necessarily) transform ideas into partnerships, partnerships into investments, and investments into lasting prosperity for our continent.”
However, he was quick tyo warn that “potential is not prosperity.
“Our task is to convert these advantages into productive enterprises, competitive industries, regional value chains, jobs and wealth,” he stressed.
Recall that Bio, as Chairman of ECOWAS, had last year envisioned the summit to consolidate a regional market of over 400 million people and mobilise businesses from within West Africa and across the world to deepen trade, investment and economic cooperation.
This, the co-chairs agree, is possible if the sub-region shifts decisively from promise to delivering regional integration by mobilizing the capital needed to build globally competitive industries needed to transform West Africa’s vast economic potential into shared prosperity.
In a chat with senior journalists before Wednesday’s meeting, President Bio challenged members of the Advisory Board to move from advocacy to active mobilisation: engaging prospective investors directly, matching them with viable projects, and identifying the financing gaps, policy decisions and other interventions required to move transactions forward.
On his part, Elumelu welcomed President Bio’s desire to place private capital and enterprise at the heart of the regional agenda, restating his commitment to rally African and international investment alongside leading African financial institutions, including the Africa Finance Corporation, African Export-Import Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Ecobank, among others, to support the execution of priority projects.
Elumelu’s determination aligns with his philosophy of Africapitalism—the belief that African private sector must place its role in catalysing the continent’s economic transformation through long-term investment in critical sectors.
He stressed the need for African businesses to increasingly look beyond national borders and combine capital, expertise and capabilities to build enterprises and industries capable of competing at scale, while in the process creating jobs and expanding opportunity across the sub-region.
For him, the WAIIS “is consistent with our aspirations to create jobs for our young people,” he said. “We have all it takes to be prosperous.”
But such private sector ambition, he warned, must be matched by decisive government action. ”Governments must provide the policy certainty, regulatory efficiency and security required to give investors the confidence to commit capital for the long term.”
Also speaking at the meeting, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State, often touted as the 5th largest economy in Africa when compared directly against sovereign African countries, and routinely placed just behind Nigeria (as a whole), South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria, underscored the importance of industrialisation and free movement of goods and services in building a truly integrated West African market.
He agreed with Elumelu on the need for political leaders to provide the enabling environment, certainty and assurances required for businesses to invest, produce and trade across borders.
At the heart of the discussion during Wednesday’s meeting in Lagos was a shared conviction by participants that West Africa has the scale, resources, talent and entrepreneurial capacity to become one of the world’s most dynamic economic regions. They called attention to four strategic with potential to reshape West Africa’s economic outlook.
Addressing newsmen earlier, Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, Special Envoy appointed by President Bio to spearhead the initiative, listed these as energy trade and industrialisation; strategic minerals; agribusiness; and digital transformation.
Expected to attend the WAIIS slated for the Julius Maada Bio International Conference Centre in Lungi, Sierra Leone, on November 17 and 18, are Heads of state, investors and business leaders together to advance investment across energy, strategic minerals, agribusiness and the digital transformation value-chain.
Other private sector members of the WAIIS advisory board who expected to attend the summit a statement by the organisers said, include Governor, Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) Jean-Claude Kassi Brou,; Aliko Dangote, President/Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, Apostle Folorunso Alakija, Executive Vice Chairman, FA Limited, Samuel Dossou-Aworet, Founding Chairman, Petrolin Group, Dr. George Elombi, President & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Afreximbank; Samaila Zubairu, President & Chief Executive Officer, Africa Finance Corporation; Abdul Samad Rabiu, Chairman/CEO, BUA Group; Wale Tinubu, Group Chief Executive, Oando Plc; Alain Ebobissé, Chief Executive Officer, Africa50; Paulo Gomes, Founder and Chairman, Orango Investment Corporation; Prof. Benedict Okey Oramah — Chairman, Africa Trading Minerals (ATMIN); and Habib Yérim Sow, Group Chairman/CEO, Teyliom Group.
