There is palpable excitement in Nigerian government circles about the strides being made in the economy. President Muhammadu Buhari, who visited Britain earlier this month met with top officials of Shell during his trip. He said the meeting was part of the effort to get the company to commit to $15 billion of investment in Nigeria.
President Buhari told the Commonwealth Business Forum in London on Wednesday last week, “I saw Shell Group, they came here, they saw me, they are preparing to invest $15 billion in Nigeria… so really, we are not doing too badly”. He was speaking as part of a panel on the ease of doing business between Commonwealth countries.
A spokesperson for the company said in a statement: “Nigeria is an important country for Shell. We see good opportunities there for potential investment,” referring to its Bonga offshore oil field and the expansion of liquefied natural gas as an example of this. “Both projects are subject to a future final investment decision and we continue to work with our partners and the government towards that in each case.”
The statement expatiated further, “The potential investments feature as options in our long-term plans and would fit within our capital spending range of $25 to $30 billion per year if we decide to go ahead with them.”
The volatile nature of oil prices hit Nigeria’s economy hard in recent times. In 2016, the country suffered its first full-year recession in 25 years. However, economic growth has picked up and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, has given pass marks to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, for its policies to return the economy to buoyancy.
President Buhari announced with excitement that, as of October 2017, Nigeria had moved up 24 places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking 145th out of a total of 190 economies. “We acknowledge that much more is to be done but we are now in the next stage, this is work in progress,” he said.
