Enhancing Entrepreneurial Skills in Nasarawa

Enhancing Entrepreneurial Skills in Nasarawa

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY, THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF NASARAWA STATE, ALH. (DR.) ABDULLAHI ADAMU (Sarkin Yakin Keffi), ON THE OCCASION OF THE OFFICIAL COMMISSIONING OF NASARAWA STATE BUSINESS INFORMATION CENTRE (BIC) LAFIA ON MONDAY, JULY 21, 2003

The Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State;

The Honourable Speaker, NSHA;

My Lord, the Honourable Chief Judge;

The Grand Khadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal;

The President, Customary Court of Appeal, Principal Officers and Members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly;

The Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs;

The Special Adviser to the President on AGOA;

The State PDP Chairman;

The Ag. Secretary to the State Government;

The Head of Civil Service;

Permanent Secretaries;

Members of the Delegation from the United States – Small Business Administration

Chief Executives of Boards, Commissions and Parastatals;

Local Government Chairmen;

Your Royal Highness, the Emir of Lafia;

Other Royal Highnesses present;

Distinguished Elders of Nasarawa State

Distinguished visitors and invitees;

Members of the Press;

Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is with a feeling of delight and accomplishment that I welcome you all to this landmark event. That you have set-aside other important engagements to be here clearly attests to your individual and collective efforts to register your solidarity with the development strides of the Nasarawa State Government.

We are resolved as a government to pool every resource at our disposal to free our people from the shackles of poverty and underdevelopment. During the first four years of the PDP administration in this State we laid a solid foundation and defined the focus for a comprehensive and sustained growth and development to give meaning to the lives of our people. Having created such an encouraging environment, our pre-occupation in the years ahead will be to consolidate on industrialization and the development of a private sector driven economy.

It is worth recalling that early in the life of our first tenure, we identified the complete lack of industries in the state as the principal factor hampering the desired socio-economic development of the State. Indeed, I had observed at the maiden Nasarawa State Economic Summit that the absence of industries was largely to blame for our under development. It was rather ironical that a state so richly endowed with natural and agricultural resources, found its people living in squalor because of the under-development of its potentials and resources, many years after its creation.

Consequently, during the first four-year tenure of this administration, we did not rest on our oars in the search for viable options through which Nasarawa State could project its potential to the wider world and, by consequence, attract the needed domestic and foreign investment with a view to creating wealth and prosperity for our people.

In cognisance of the crucial contribution that industrialization would make towards realizing our overall growth objectives, we took bold steps by establishing the Nasara Packaging Company at Akwanga; the Masaka Beef Processing Factory; a Fertilizer Blending Plant at Lafia, a Lapidary plant at Nasarawa to add value to our semi-precious stones. We are currently putting finishing touches to the Soap-Making Factory at Akwanga. Our hope is to consolidate the achievements made in this area and to ensure that Nasarawa State indigenes and other entrepreneurs resident in the state develop a culture of investment in large, medium and small-scale industries as a guarantee for both per capita and gross economic security.

The Business Information Centre Lafia, which is being commissioned today, is part of Government’s relentless efforts in developing small private sector enterprises in the state as a means of ensuring that our people play a prominent role in the economic development of Nigeria.

For all practical purposes therefore, the BIC is intended to enhance entrepreneurial skills both here in Nasarawa State and the country at large via intensive training and information programmes. To achieve this goal, the Centre will utilise Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to introduce and deliver a model of efficient and high quality service in the domestic and global market place.

More importantly, the driving force behind the establishment of the BIC is to aid prospective small business owners on how to package business marketing and accounting plans, fitting enough to be utilised for the acquisition of loan facilities from financial institutions. Thus, the initiative is intended to provide the necessary impetus for securing funds where it would otherwise be difficult.

The BIC therefore stands as a testimony of the commitment of the Nasarawa State Government to raise the status of the citizens of the State in economic activities. We are poised to harness the potentials of Information and Communications Technologies in bringing about the much-needed economic prosperity for our people. Today’s economy is technology-driven; and we are convinced that our people can derive enormous benefits if their businesses are introduced to and integrated with this new vista of business.

Consequently, with the commissioning of the BIC today, people in other parts of the globe can make business contacts with the people of Nasarawa State and its enormous endowments, and vice- versa.

Contemporary economic realities compel us to recognise that the opportunities created by Information and Communications Technologies should constitute the paradigm of a new business culture. It is on this ground that the establishment of the Business Information Centre (BIC) must be seen as a timely Government intervention to break the circle of business failures. It is my hope that this project will usher the State and its people onto the path of industrial and economic vibrancy.

It is my fervent hope that the various stakeholders, particularly the small-scale business class, members of the Chamber of Commerce and other end users will avail themselves of the benefits inherent in the services to be rendered by this centre. The centre will be the focus of government business development strategies in the course of our present tenure.

May I therefore use this opportunity to record our profound gratitude to the United States Government through the Washington-based United States - Small Business Administration (US-SBA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for the support extended to us in the establishment of this centre.

Permit me to also acknowledge and appreciate the positive roles of Tanya Smith, Programme Manager for Africa at the United States - Small Business Administration and Mr. Mike Williams, President of the United States – Nigeria Development Institute in the conceptualisation and realisation of this project. Similarly, I commend the State Ministry of Information which, under its then Commissioner who incidentally is now the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State, sustained the vision that has translated to the BIC today.

There is no gainsaying that by this singular gesture of cooperation, the government and people of the United States of America have not only displayed true friendship, but have also amply shared our dreams and aspirations. We hope and pray that this relationship between our two countries particularly as it affects Business interactions shall open the gates of greater understanding for the mutual benefit of all.

I call on those who are entrusted with the management of this Information Centre to remember that this project is a public trust in which the people and Government of Nasarawa State have high stakes. Your main challenge, therefore, is to run it with absolute transparency and an application of the highest business practices possible.

Once again, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all to this epoch-making event, and it is my honour and pleasure to commission the Nasarawa Business Information Centre.

May God bless our collaborative efforts.

Thank you all.