The Founder of Kaftan TV and former Presidential Candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo has advocated for various sectoral reforms, including land, infrastructure, and capital reforms, as being essential for ease of doing business in Nigeria.
Adebayo who contested in the 2023 general election under the Social Democratic Party (SDP), noted that without reforms in key sectors of the economy, Nigeria remains unattractive to both local and foreign investors.
He made the call in Lagos on Saturday while delivering a keynote speech at the J9C 13th anniversary lecture themed: “Business and Policy Strategy: Examining the Role of Reforms in Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria”.
It’s cheaper to transport resources from Italy to Lagos than from Abuja to Lagos
On the need for improved infrastructure, the Lawyer and Businessman noted that it is cheaper for him to transport mineral resources or raw materials from Italy to Lagos than from Abuja to Lagos.
Alluding to his experience in the mining industry, he said: “I’m a miner and I have a particular mining site in Abuja that is very attractive because we have Mable and all of that but I found out that to import Mabble from Cara in Italy or from China is cheaper to transport from Cara to Lagos than to transform from my Factory in Abuja to Lagos because of infrastructure.”
He stressed that the government must be serious about improving infrastructure to enhance the ease of doing business in the country.
On Land reforms
Adebayo criticised the opaqueness in Nigeria’s Land laws and realities, particularly as it relates to minerals and natives.
He seeks comprehensive reforms in Land and transparency in the reforms, adding that investors should not be dealing with things like ‘omo oniles’.
“You must make land and anything related to land… and when I define land, I define land including licensing, minerals and everything… you must make them transparent.
“When a company is sitting in Los Angeles and they asking the board members what is the meaning of ‘Omo onile’, you know that you have a problem in that economy so you need to make land and do proper Land Reform.
“We haven’t done land reforms in Nigeria; we’re only doing land acquisition land grabbing but Land Reform we haven’t done and because we are not doing Land Reform, we are not able to do reform of things under the land,” he argued.
Economic reform is not effective without political, and governmental reforms
The government critic also urged the government to reform itself as no economic reform would be effective without political and governmental reforms.
He said there is a need to mitigate economic crimes by people in positions of authority, or else they would sabotage economic reforms.
“The first reforms you do, if you’re in government, is self-reform or governmental reform. So when you do governmental reforms then you can reform the other sectors; you can reform the economy. But an unreformed government pretending to reform business is not going to be a reform it’s going to be just another waste of time,” he said.
He further recommended severe punishments for economic crimes, while arguing that fighting economic crimes should not be limited to “yahoo boys” but extended to the political class.
He said “Economic crimes do not allow businesses to reach their full potential therefore if you must make reform for ease of doing business, in addition to separating the regulator from the regulated you must make economic crimes quite punishment punishable.
“And I can tell you economic crime doesn’t mean one Yahoo boy being arrested and putting him on the floor for TV to see; economic crime means that when government policies are made, those who have the political Capital to invest in people’s politics and capture sectors and Industry for themselves are severely punished together with those who they are colluding with.”
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