Promises to Provide the Platform to Actualise Intention
National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer, NEPAD Nigeria, Princess Gloria Akobundu, has called on Nigerian professionals across the country with exceptional talents to avail the nation’s youth the benefits of their endowments through various mentorship programmes that would ensure that they pass down to the next generation of leaders in their fields all that they know.
Princess Akobundu, who made the call today at the Imo Trade and Investment Centre, Owerri, during the investors’ interaction session organised as part of the Presidential Initiative on the Development of the Niger Delta States and Empowerment of their Youths, said her Agency, as part of its core mandates, would always be prepared to create the enabling environment for such transfer of learning and ideas to take place.
The NEPAD Nigeria CEO said the core mandate of the Agency was the development of the economy through linking the needs of the nation to solutions wherever they exist and providing answers to capacity needs of, especially, women and youths, whose empowerment, by their nature, benefits society most.
She thanked the Imo State Government for their efforts at ensuring that the development mission of President Muhammadu Buhari to the State yielded the desired fruits, while urging the people of the State to be receptive to new ideas, new neighbours and friends who only mean well for the people and their resources when they eventually come to take over ailing industries and moribund sites.
Earlier, while welcoming members of the Presidential initiative to the event, Barr. Rex Anunobi, Special Adviser to the Governor on Trade and Investment, said the State was an investment hub with rich and diverse areas of strength in agribusiness, industrial clusters and training facilities. He invited the investors to take advantage of the rich resources in the State and put their funds to work.
Several presentations were made on agriculture, including ones on the medicinal properties and benefits of some local and indigenous crops, roots and tubers. There was also a presentation by the State Government seeking investors in the State’s Industrial Park at Ohaji-Egbema.
The Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, who commended the efforts of those driving the Presidential initiative, also used the occasion to unveil a handbook on investment in Imo State with the title: Imo State:The Nigerian Investment Destination of Choice.
Among those who were present at the event were the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Trade and Investment, Fola Oyeyinka, former INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu, who made a presentation on herbal treatment and pharmacology, representatives of NNPC, NIRSAL, Bank of Industry, NEXIM Bank among many others.The Hon. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Dr. Usani Usani, who led the team also called on Imo State to prepare for actions arising from the visit.
The programme, an initiative of President Muhammadu Buhari to identify and reactivate moribund industries in the States of Niger Delta for Economic Development and Job Creation, was flagged off in Akure, Ondo State, last month and is expected to go through all the remaining 7 States of the region.