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Many states in Nigeria pride themselves as the new
destinations for investors. How business-friendly is the Ogun State Government
to investors and investments?
We are conscious of creating an enabling environment for
people to come and work, live, invest, and play. So, we decided to have what we
regard as our implementation pillar called ISEYA – ‘I’ for infrastructure, ‘S’
for security and social welfare, ‘E’ for education, ‘Y’ for youth empowerment
and job creation, and ‘A’ for agriculture. Through these developmental pillars,
we have begun to implement our vision. Take for instance, the area of
infrastructure, we took cognisance of the need to maximise our proximity to
Lagos, and so far, we have constructed over 400 kilometres of highways. And of
the 400 kilometres of highways, we prioritise the highways that connect us with
neighbouring states, particularly Lagos. Today, four years and a few months
into our tenure, you can travel between Lagos and Ogun states and it will take
you less than an hour. When we assumed office, it took one probably two or
three hours or even more. So, more people are now coming to Ogun State to live,
work, hold conferences, and play because we are easily accessible.
What would you say is your greatest achievement so far since
you have been the governor of the state?
Without a doubt, today, Ogun State has become an investment
destination of choice in Nigeria, and that is made possible because of our
creative policy of exploring the inherent comparative advantage of our
geographical location as the only neighbour that Lagos State has. Lagos State
is the fifth largest economy on the continent of Africa. It remains the
economic capital of Nigeria and the financial nerve centre, and being the only
neighbour that Lagos State has, we are what I would describe as the New Jersey
of Nigeria. What New Jersey is to New York is what Ogun State is to Lagos
State. So, we represent the overflow of Lagos. Ogun State is 16,000 square
kilometres in size. We are about four times the size of Lagos State; we have an
expansive land size. Also, you can’t go to any part of the country without
going through Ogun State, either by land, sea, or air. So, that in itself
represents our comparative advantage over other states.
We are also a neighbour to the sub-African region through
the Republic of Benin. Today, you will find out that there are a lot of
companies, industries, and manufacturers that have been in Ogun State for
years. And the primary reason for that is, one, Lagos State houses the busiest
airport and the busiest seaports. They can bring their raw materials from Lagos
to Ogun State, process them, distribute them back to Lagos, or distribute them
to the hinterlands. But beyond that, we also enjoy a crisscross of natural gas
pipelines. So, beyond the convenience of being close to the busiest seaport and
the financial capital, industries have found their home here because they have
access to power through natural gas. So, as an administration, when we came on
board, we looked at all these factors and decided to leverage them. Our vision
encapsulates focused and qualitative governance while creating an enabling
environment for public-private partnership, which we believe is fundamental to
the economic growth of the state and the individual prosperity of our people.
There are several narratives in the media about your
transportation policy and pattern of implementation. What has your
administration done so far to align the sector with your plans for Ogun State?
Immediately we assumed office, we decided that it was
necessary to have a transportation master plan as we considered transportation
as a key enabler for our various industries to thrive. We now have what we call
a multimodal master plan. This master plan defines the connection among roads,
rail, and air transportation. We have since begun the implementation four years
and a few months down the road. We have built a world-class airport in Ogun
State. This airport story started in 2006 when it was licensed as an airport.
When it was approved, it remained what we called a ‘PowerPoint’ airport.
However, after our master plan, we decided that we must be adequately informed
as to where the airport should be located, and from all indications, the
airport was located where it was originally approved, somewhere in the Ikenne
Local Government Area between Ilishan and Iperu.
How did you arrive at the choice of the location?
The location of the airport represents the centre point of
Ogun State. It is easily accessible. It is joined by two major highways – the
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin Expressway. It is bound within our
major plantations. It is co-located in our special agro-processing zone, and
thus, we call that airport location our ‘aerotropolis’. That airport was built
within two years. The first flight landed sometime last year. The airport will
commence commercial operations before the end of this year. It was built as a
cargo and passenger airport, but it is an international airport. It was built
to be a truly international airport in line with global best practices. It is
the airport with the longest runway in Nigeria.
What is the idea behind having two locations connected to
the project?
Of course, the whole idea of co-location of this airport is
predicated on the special agro-processing zone such that the entire value
chains of agro-produce in that zone and raw materials are coming from different
plantations that we have in Ogun State. The agro-produce, be it cassava,
cashew, oil palm, rubber, cotton, and so many others, including those that need
to be air-freighted in that airport to the rest of the world, are coming to the
special agro-processing zone and are being processed. As they say, ‘When you
build a road, it takes you from one location to the other, but when you build
an airport, it takes you from one location to the rest of the world’. By this
world-class international airport that we have constructed in Ogun State, the
state is now open to the entire world as an industrial capital of Nigeria.
In addition to the aforementioned, we also sit on top of
many natural resources. We have limestone, we have uranium, we have calcium
carbonate, and different kinds of clay suitable for many products. That
explains why we have the largest cement factories in Nigeria right here in Ogun
State. In Ogun State, we produce the highest tonnage of cement. The largest
cement factories in Nigeria and Africa are situated in Ogun State. We have
Lafarge, we have Dangote and we have others that are also springing up. But besides
that, we have all the multinationals. We have Nestle, we have Cadbury, we have
Unilever, we have May & Baker, we have International Breweries, we have
Olams, we have Flour Mills, and the list goes on. As a matter of fact, I always
say that if you are not in Ogun State, you are not yet in Nigeria.
How economically viable is the airport?
Well, as I had earlier explained, our airport is part of our
multi-modal transport master plan, and what the airport represents is an
opportunity that allows for investors, in terms of passenger travel, to take
off from anywhere in the world and land in our state. So, in the first
instance, our state now becomes accessible to those who are travelling by air,
unlike before when people who wanted to travel by air from Ogun State had to go
to Lagos and had to fight traffic congestion to access the Lagos airport.
Now, when commercial operations commence at the airport, you
just have to drive to the airport within 30 minutes or 40 minutes from any part
of Ogun State, board your flight, and fly to whatever your destination is. That
is on one part and the other part, which is the multiplier effect of this
airport in Ogun State, is its co-location in an industrial zone. This
industrial zone, when completed, will employ between 30,000 and 50,000 workers.
The industrial zone itself is a public-private partnership between the state
government and private companies.
In this instance, we have chosen an economic hub that
expands daily, with such partnerships in different parts of the sub-region –
Ivory Coast, Gabon, Togo, Benin Republic, and so on. We have done this
successfully. We are being supported by the African Export-Import Bank and many
others. The airport represents an enabler, not just for air traffic, but also
an enabler to evacuate efficiently fresh agro-produce.
How?
Let me give you an example; we have had investors from
different countries who have come here to meet with us to set up vegetable
farms in the special agro-processing zone and airlift fresh vegetables from our
airport daily. We have been approached by cargo companies that now want to
relocate where their cargoes are being delivered to and ship into Nigeria from
where they are presently, simply because they have seen the size of our apron
at the airport, which is 84,000 square metres. It is four or five times larger
than the largest cargo airport in Nigeria. These cargo-based companies have now
decided that, once the airport is ready, they will be flying their cargoes that
are destined for Nigeria to that airport, and from our airport, they will
trans-ship the cargoes to the other parts of Nigeria and even West Africa. When
you look at all those who will be involved in these cargo operations in the
distribution and running of our airport from the agro-producing zone to the
‘aerotropolis’, you can just imagine the economic impacts and the number of
jobs that will be created.
The impacts will resonate in the entire economy beyond Ogun
State, not just this country but the entire Africa. With the new African
Continental Free Trade Area, our airport is coming on board at the right time
because, with that agreement, the sub-region is now gearing up to ensure that
there are no trade barriers between one country and the other. An airport like
this can best facilitate this AfCFTA agreement.
What role are the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Air
Force and other relevant security agencies expected to play when the airport
begins operations?
You should know that the traditional role of the Customs
service of any country is to ensure that necessary tariffs and excise duties
are paid on goods imported into the country. In that regard, the Nigeria
Customs Service has applied for and paid for 100 hectares of land at the
airport. They have begun the construction of their village at the airport. This
just goes to show how much preparation is already underway, if the Nigeria
Customs Service came, and paid for 100 hectares of land. From what I understand,
they will be erecting over 700 housing units and so many warehouses. So, a lot
of work is already ongoing. They have been in the pipeline.
The Nigerian Air Force has also discussed an air force base
with us. We are also talking to others who want to set up flying schools at the
airport. Others have also come, saying that they want to set up what they call
an FBO (fixed base operator), which is a place where planes are maintained,
parked, and serviced rather than being taken outside the country. This will
save the country the needed foreign exchange. The amount of activities that we
will be seeing in the next few months at the airport will be massive and
awesome. We are a state government but we are not willing to wait and be
looking and seeking others to come and build an airport for us. That wouldn’t
have happened in our eight years of administration. So, we decided that we
would make a new investment. We would de-risk the project and then, we would
continue with others. That’s exactly what has happened. Today, we have received
unsolicited offers from many aviation investors who are serious about taking
over the airport on a concession. We are talking to them. We are excited about
the level of interest that we have seen, and this we expected.
Apart from the apron, what are the other special features of
the airport?
We built this airport to world-class standards. It also has
the best-constructed runway in Nigeria. Our terminals are the best in Nigeria.
Our airport lounge and terminal lounge will be the best standard in Nigeria
because this is what we wanted to do and what we set out to do. So, we are
excited about the opportunities we have been presented with. We have
undoubtedly opened Ogun State to the whole world, and in the same vein, we
enjoy a rail line that goes from Lagos through Ogun State to the North. We are
concerned about cargoes that come to Ogun State, either as raw materials or
finished goods, and those that are being imported through Lagos, whether
through Tin Can or Apapa seaports.
We also know that besides the inefficiency of these ports in
the past years, there is also a problem with the degree of traffic congestion
one will go through in the ports to remove containers. This in itself affects
our manufacturers and processors. So, we decided that to further ensure that we
constantly increase our ranking in the ease of doing business index, we must
find a way of allowing our manufacturers, who are exporting, to be able to
export their containers efficiently.
Is the state government considering constructing a dry port?
We will also be constructing our dry port soon. And when the
port, which will be in Kajola, is constructed, it means that if you are
shipping goods from anywhere in the world to Ogun State, you don’t need to go
through Lagos anymore. You can simply ship your goods through the Kajola Dry
Port, just to take the containers on the train and then come down to Kajola.
When you also want to export your goods, you will stock the containers in
Kajola, put them on the train and the containers go on the vessel. There will
be no need for the inefficiencies that are associated with trucks going in and
out of Lagos ports and the menace of traffic congestion. These are some of the
reforms, policies, and programmes that this administration has implemented to
support the over 5,000 industries that have come to make Ogun State their home.
By doing so, we will be fully implementing our vision, which is to create an
enabling environment for more people to come here to live, work, and play,
which in turn translates into the individual prosperity of our people.