How Ogun’ll remain Top most Investment Destination, by Abiodun

The Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun has said the state will remain the nation’s number one investors’ choice for long because his administration is consciously working to retain that status.
According to him, the state with its rich human and natural endowment cannot be compared with any other state in terms of access to land and sea port as well as availability of arable land.
Gov Abiodun stated this at the 34thAnnual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in Abeokuta, where he encouraged foreign investors to come and take advantage of the one-stop arrangement created by the recently passed Ogun State Investment Promotion Law.
“Our state remains the best place for investors to open business. Besides our natural geographical location as the gateway state to Nigeria, we share borders with four other states and we share international borders with Benin Republic, which is a window to the West African sub-region,” the governor said.
He added that in addition to these natural factors, “our proximity to Lagos, the continent’s fifth largest economy, our administration is providing focused and qualitative governance and create the enabling environment for a public-private sector partnership, which we consider fundamental to the creation of an enduring economic development and individual prosperity of the people of Ogun”
“So, we are very investor-friendly; we are putting reforms in place to ensure that we are even more investor-friendly. We are trying to ensure that we become number one in the ease of doing business in this country and it is incontrovertible that we house the largest number of industries in the country.”
The governor, who was represented on the occasion by his deputy, Noimot Salako, said the AGM’s theme: “The manufacturing sector: An integral part of making Ogun State the industrial hub of Nigeria,” was apt as his administration was working with the private sector in all areas of development, especially, in employment generation, wealth creation, food security and poverty alleviation.
He noted that his administration “is committed to making Ogun State a truly Investors’ First Choice Destination not only in Nigeria, but in Sub-Sahara Africa,” adding that the geographical location of the state as the gateway to the country and its proximity to Lagos, the fifth largest economy in Africa, puts the state in a vantage position for this aspiration.
As Ogun State continued to experience influx of companies, we have deliberately considered the interest of our investors the integral part of our master-plan. We have put in place measures as the foundation to drive key policies in our Public-Private Sector Partnership strategy, and we are already recording positive results.
“We are consciously improving the state’s ranking on the local and global ease of doing business index so as to promote and encourage local and foreign direct investment in the state.”
He added that his administration had also put in place mechanism for a transparent, accountable revenue collection system to halt multiple taxation, whilst increasing capital expenditure on infrastructural development of roads, energy and information technology.
“Ogun State Investment Promotion Agency will be a one-stop-shop, which will help investors to settle down easily without having to go through multiple windows,” he said.
The governor also used the meeting to inform the investors that government was working towards ensuring that the state of public infrastructure across the state was improved upon.
He added that the present government was also committed to ensuring that the welfare of workers in the state was attended to and also improve the security of lives and property.
Governor Abiodun promised to create industrial parks and to “strategically locate them in different parts of the state that will provide 24-hour uninterrupted electricity supply,” which he said would be of immense help to cottage industries in local communities.