President Bola Tinubu says Nigeria’s investment environment operates on the principle of ‘a willing-buyer and willing-seller’, which ensures seamless access to capital for investors both within and outside the country.

The President gave the assurance on Sunday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during a meeting with the President and Chief Executive Officer of Samsung, Hong Namkoong, and the Chairman of Samsung Investment Global, Jungwook Kim.

The meeting took place on the margins of the World Economic Forum Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy for Development.

”Nigeria is a very huge country with a huge and able population. We have vibrant youths ready to learn and progress. In fact, our young do not wait for us. They go ahead of us in their determination to succeed. We must keep up and provide opportunities for them to excel with. We have an infrastructure deficit and you can take advantage of that and invest early and deeply in an environment that is absorptive and ready for it. It is modeled after a willing-buyer and willing-seller arrangement. Easy capital in and easy capital out.

The President took time to detail the significant opportunities across sectors for investment within the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund, which involves the potential utilization of co-finance instruments on critical infrastructure and technology which Samsung is well known to produce.

President Tinubu also harped on the importance of deepening collaboration in the crude oil, natural gas, renewable energy, engineering, technology and agriculture sectors, emphasizing the potential for vast private sector participation in the establishment of fully-embedded, off-grid, cold-chain integration across sub-industries in the agriculture sector to forestall post-harvest losses with mass refrigeration capacity.

”We are ready to discuss and discover one another more. We can benefit so much from collaborative effort. You have the know-how, and we have the willingness. Seize this opportunity,’’ the President told the Samsung executives.

Samsung Chairman Kim expressed Samsung’s interest in expanding its presence in Nigeria, citing the successes of sister companies already operating in the country while laying out potential new opportunities in Nigeria.

”We have built many power stations around the world. We are top of the class in gas-fired power plant construction. We have an ever-increasing portfolio in the production of renewable energy solutions around the world. We can make a lot of progress in Nigeria’s energy sector as well as bringing our technology to other key productive sectors.

”Transmission lines and smart grids are areas where we see increasing demand globally. You need infrastructure anywhere you go. We are good at metropolitan rail lines; we are good at bridge construction and any of these types of infrastructure projects, in addition to oil and gas engineering projects. We are looking forward to knowing Nigeria better under your leadership and to see how we can penetrate the Nigerian market deeper. This is a great opportunity for us,” Mr. Kim concluded.

Multichoice, a major satellite television service in Sub-Saharan Africa, has announced an increase in prices on the DSTV and GOtv packages amid economic hardship ravaging Nigeria.

This was disclosed in a statement signed Wednesday by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, John Ugbe.

He said the increase was necessitated by the rise in the cost of business operations.

According to the statement, the increment would take effect on May 1, 2024.

“We understand the impact this change may have on you – our valued customer, but the rise in the cost of business operations, has led us to make this difficult decision.

“We understand the impact this change may have on you – our valued customer, but the rise in the cost of business operations, has led us to make this difficult decision,” the statement said.

See the full list of price changes below:

The Federal Government has revoked 924 dormant licenses spanning exploration, mining, small-scale mining, and quarrying Licenses.

This is in furtherance of efforts to sanitise the mining sector.

Making the announcement on Wednesday at a press conference, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake declared that in line with constitutional provisions, adequate notice was given to all concerned parties through the official Gazette of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, No. 227, which was published on December 27, 2023.

“The notice gave all concerned parties 30 days to regularise their status, including clarifications on what caused the license to be dormant. Thus, although a total of 963 licensees were published and notified of the threat of revocation, no fewer that 39 either moved to site immediately or convinced the authorities of the challenges hindering their operations”, the Minister asserted.

In view of the foregoing, Alake affirmed the revocation of 928 dormant licenses, which include 528 exploration licenses; 20 mining leases; 101 quarry licenses, and 273 Small Scale Mining Licenses (SSML).

Speaking further, the Minister stated that the action followed due process and fair consideration while it underscored the commitment of the Federal Government to implement the standard policy of “Use it or Lose it” as enshrined in mining guidelines.

According to Alake, “Investors across the globe are now free to apply for any of the affected Cadastral Units on the basis of “first come, first served.” It is our belief that this decision will sanitise the licensing system by penalising those who have commercialised the opportunities offered by the sector into a bazaar.”

Noting that the revocation was not meant to be punitive, the Minister announced an opportunity for affected licensees to make restitution, imposing fines for different categories of revoked licenses, stressing that this also applied to the 1,633 titles revoked last year for default in payment of annual service fees.

“For revoked Mining Licenses, a fine of N10m applies; N7.5m for Small Scale Mining License (SSML) while N5m for Exploration License (EL). They will be required to make the payments within 30 days to qualify for consideration,” Alake emphasised.

The Minister warned that henceforth, the Federal Government would not tolerate the nefarious activities of license racketeering or those that obtain licenses for speculation in order to offer them to the highest bidder.

“A good lesson from this exercise is for investors to do their homework and be ready to flag off their projects as soon as they obtain licenses. Nigeria is open for business, and we shall encourage smart, serious, and adventurous investors to set up and provide jobs to our teeming youths,” Alake added.