The Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, has thrown his weight behind the forthcoming 2015 Nigeria Infrastructure Public Private Partnership Summit scheduled to hold in the last quarter of this year.
The Emir, a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, gave his nod to the summit while speaking with the summit planning team recently in his palace in Kano when the latter paid a courtesy visit to him on the event. The visit was part of several scheduled consultations with various stakeholders on infrastructure development in the country.
The planning team was led by A.B. Mahmoud (SAN), managing partner at Dikko & Mahmoud, and it included Gori Olusina Daniel and Hakeem Adeleye, both from Adams & Moore, a UK-based global professional advisory firm, Ibrahim Abdullahi and Zubaida Mahmoud from Dikko & Mahmoud, a law firm.
Emir Sanusi who highlighted the need for a pragmatic approach in developing Nigeria’s infrastructure across different sectors, bemoaned the non-implementation of several recommendations from previous successful Summits by past Governments.
The Emir while assuring the team of his support also called for priority attention on social infrastructure especially in areas such as health and education, both of which, according to him, are primarily critical to the well being of the people.
He said “I understand the critical role infrastructure plays in developing our economy, and in particular, the need for Nigeria to address the key social infrastructure deficit particularly in education and health that will deliver a better quality of life not just for the elite, but for those in society for whom access to one thousand naira could make the difference between losing a child and obtaining the medication and treatment that could save a child’s life”.
Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II has recently been appointed chairman of the Board of Black Rhino, a Blackstone portfolio company focused on the development and acquisitions of energy and infrastructure projects across Africa.
Also speaking, A.B Mahmoud (SAN) the leader of the delegation told the Emir that the Summit aims to establish a private sector-led Community of Practice with the mandate to work with government at all levels to ensure the delivery of sector-specific roadmaps for the development of critical infrastructure through public private partnerships.
In his own remarks on the objectives of the Summit, Gori Olusina Daniel, partner and Africa Regional Director at Adams & Moore, noted that the Summit would focus on four critical sectors– Power, Health, Transport and Education, aligned with the Federal Government’s stated development priorities.
“This summit is about charting the way forward in four critical sectors and establishing a private sector led Community of Practice, working in collaboration with government across all levels that will ensure the successful implementation of these roadmaps,” he said.
It would be recalled that the Institute of Appraisers and Cost Engineers, (IA&CE) recently disclosed that the draft National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan would require an estimated amount of over US$2.9 trillion in investments over the next 30 years to address Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit.
This corresponds to an annual average of US$25bn over the next four years – about four times the federal government’s total allocation to capital projects in the 2014 budget.
The 2015 Nigeria Infrastructure PPP Summit will bring together senior policy makers and analysts within the investment community – comprising senior industry leaders, fund managers, international development partners and experts with a keen interest in building on lessons learnt from across the continent and beyond, with the objective of charting roadmaps for the successful development and delivery of PPP projects in Nigeria over the next 5 to 10 years.
The Summit with the theme “Nigeria 2025: Tackling Nigeria’s Infrastructure Deficit Through Public Private Partnerships” is organised by Adams & Moore, a U.K-based global professional advisory firm, the Infrastructure and Human capital Development Policy Commissions of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Bola Ajibola & Co and Dikko & Mahmoud – both full service law firms.
