• President Bola Tinubu
“Every single dollar that leaves our treasury to pay punitive interest rates is a dollar that did not go into our steel sector, textile mills, agro-processing plants or digital industries,”said President Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu spoke on Tuesday at the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where he led Nigeria’s delegation of top government officials and private sector leaders to discussions on industrialisation, trade and economic development across Africa.
The President said that Africa’s continued dependence on exporting crude oil, minerals and agricultural commodities while importing finished products was damaging local industries and slowing economic growth.
“We export raw minerals, crude oil and agricultural commodities, and we import processed goods at a premium. This pattern is not an accident. It is the product of a global financial architecture that starves our industries of affordable capital,” Tinubu said.
He argued that African countries still face unfair borrowing conditions despite implementing difficult economic reforms aimed at stabilising their economies and attracting investment.
