Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank
(AfDB), has said his institution is ready to establish an entrepreneurship
investment bank in Nigeria.
Adesina said the establishment of such a bank is in
alignment with President Bola Tinubu’s plans and vision for young people in the country.
Adesina, who was also attending the new global financial
pact summit in France’s Palais Brongniart, spoke after he paid a visit to
President Tinubu.
The AfDB president said he was impressed with the president’s
plans and vision for Nigeria, pledging his support to the administration to
achieve its goals.
“I discussed with His
Excellency, the President, a couple of things. First of course, is agriculture;
to see what we can do to support the government with regard to the president’s
vision on agriculture,”
“We discussed the special agro-industrial processing zone
for which we already have about $520 million dollar for Nigeria and how we are
going to make sure that the project gets accelerated to give quick wins to the
president”, Adesina said.
He disclosed they also talked about the power sector and the AfDB would
support the President’s effort and vision.
The president, the AfDB boss said, wanted to make sure there was an improvement in access to electricity in Nigeria, and therefore, discussed about how
the bank could support him, saying, “we gave him the assurance that we will support
significantly in the power sector in Nigeria.”
Adesina also commended Tinubu’s desire to impact the
industrial sector.
“I discussed with the president also with regard to the
industrial sector in Nigeria. I was impressed with his vision in terms of
trying to grow the industrial sector in Nigeria and also having an
export-orientated industrial manufacturing stance, which is very important for
growing the forex in Nigeria,
“We also discussed about the youth. I have heard him speak
quite a lot about young people — his heart for young people and how he wants
to support them.
“He asked for our
support in regard to what we can do about that and I explained to the president
that we will support him with the establishment of a youth entrepreneurship
investment bank in Nigeria.
“This is going to be new financial institutions that will
support the access to financing for the business of young people. He had the
desire to grow the wealth for young people which is actually very good”, he concluded.
