Tinubu woos business leaders, promises to work with them to improve Nigeria

Tinubu restated his administration’s resolve to hit a double-figure Gross Domestic Product (GDP) if he wins the 2023 presidential election.

Tinubu stated this on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, during his town hall meeting with the Business Community and Organised Private Sector at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The town hall session had in attendance the Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Kashim Shettima, Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Simon Bako Lalong who is also the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku Bagudu, Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq, Abubakar Badaru, Dapo Abiodun, Adegboyega Oyetola, Nasir El-Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje as well as other party leaders and chieftains.

The business community was fully represented by the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, Jim Ovia, Chairman of Zenith Bank, Tony Elumelu, Chairman of UBA, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, former Chief Executive of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, Group Chief Executive of Access Bank and other business leaders representing sectoral groups such as agriculture, Oil and Gas, Trade, Manufacturing, creative Sector among others.

Tinubu, who laid out his Action Plan before the business leaders said having achieved similar economic success as Lagos State governor, he has the capacity to repeat the same in the country as president.

He said, “Lagos is an appropriate venue for this meeting. You may have heard that I was once governor of this dynamic economic force. However, may I remind you that when I first entered office, Lagos was a different story.

“My team and I developed a blueprint, a master plan, for Lagos. I can say that plan has been largely successful.

“We turned this state into a safer, more prosperous place where people can go about any legitimate vocation or venture regardless of their ethnicity, religion, region or prior social station.

“We did more than open Lagos for business. We opened the door for all Nigerians to join and experience the decent things progressive democratic governance can bring.

“We were not perfect but we did a lot. In doing so, we worked hand in hand with the business community as partners sharing the same goals of prosperity and renewed hope.

“Well, as you might have heard at some point recently, I now stand before you, seeking a bigger yet similar job.”

He, therefore, called on the Lagos Business Community to join hands with him to achieve this, stating that a viable economy requires collaboration between the political and business communities.

The APC presidential candidate further said: “Nigeria stands at the threshold between indifference and greatness, prosperity and poverty, the future and the past.

“The door is ajar. Together, let us open it so that we may cross over to the better side and secure for this beloved nation its finer destiny.

“The productive and beneficial things we seek do not lie in the sole domain of one sector. They reside in the cooperation between government and the private sector.

“I see no conflict between the business community and government. Yet, with equal conviction, I believe the private sector and government should constantly be at war.

“But they wage this battle not as enemies. They must stand as inseparable allies combating the mutual enemies of scarcity, underdevelopment, joblessness and the fear these bad things breed.

“The pragmatic problem solving and teamwork that improved Lagos, I want to bring to this nation.

“I ask your help as the task ahead is doable but also difficult”.

He stressed that the nation needed to move from dependence on exporting its raw materials to nations who sell the finished products to us at exorbitant prices to one that refines its raw materials for upward export itself.