Unless Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, experiences growth, development will continue to elude the continent, the World Bank has declared.
The bank’s new Vice President for African Region, Mr. Hafez Ghanem, made the declaration in Abuja yesterday when he visited the Nigerian Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, in Abuja.
Ghanem is a one- time Country Director of the bank in Nigeria.
“The mandate of the World Bank is to foster growth around the world.
That’s while as I assume duties as the new vice president of the African Region, after my former assignment as the Vice President in charge of the Middle East, I decided that Nigeria will be my first port of call to find out in what ways the World Bank can intervene to foster growth because you can’t talk of growth in Africa until Nigeria begins to grow, being the largest population on the continent,” he said.
Ghanem spoke with nostalgia on his experience as Nigeria country director of the Bretton Wood Institutions and described his visit as homecoming.
Adeosun told the visitor that so much, in terms of growth, had taken place in the country since he left some ten years ago, stressing that the current administration’s priority was on sustaining the trajectory.
According to her, one key area the Nigerian government seeks intervention is in the power sector reform to create more value chain ventures as electricity remains the cornerstone of growth drivers in the country.
“It was gratifying to learn from people in the ministry that worked with you in the past that you are a power expert.
Indeed, that is the area we need intervention, to create more value chain in the power sector reform to help us sustain the tempo of growth in the country,” Adeosun said.
Ghanem’s visit coincided with that of one of the world’s largest financial institutions, JP Morgan Chase to Abuja to share cybercrime prevention tips with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The seminar was aimed at checking the growing criminality which has caused loss of over $600 billion worldwide.
At the one-day event which featured presentations by the JP Morgan Chase representatives on the latest cyber fraud trends, governance of cybercrime programmes and best practices on cybercrime security, the CBN Deputy Governor in charge of Financial Systems Stability, Mrs. Aishah Ahmad, said the experience sharing initiative was timely because of the dangerous dimension the menace was assuming globally.
Read more at: http://guardian.ng/news/why-nigeria-is-key-to-africas-growth-by-world-bank/
