By Udeme Akpan

Local investors and financial institutions have been urged to invest in Energy transition projects and programmes in order to attract much foreign capital.

Experts, who made the call, weekend, noted that despite the opportunities that abound in Nigeria and other African nations, not much investments have been attracted, adding the foreign investors should not be expected without many locals investing.

Founder, PUTTRU Technologies Limited, Monica Maduekwe, said: “Nigeria needs to be serious about that and that is where we will see, you know, issues of macroeconomic stabilization really coming up, like inflation needs to be good. People need to borrow at a reasonable rate.

“People need to be able to make money, but the second point is that domestic capital must lead this growth. So it’s not just foreign investors coming in. We need to see our local banks being the lead in investments in Nigeria. We need to see our private investors being the lead because when the local capital is pointing to the economy then you can see interest from outside.”

In her virtual presentation obtained by Vanguard, She said: “I was at the Qatar Economic Forum and the speaker where a participant mentioned that even in Saudi Arabia; most of the investors are local investors. If you want to come and invest in the Gulf countries, you have to come through local funding agencies because these are the ones really driving growth. Domestic capital needs to drive growth.

“Also, security of lives and property are important. People do not want to invest in an industrial plant and tomorrow somebody has vandalized it or they are kidnapped. Security is important. I am happy that in our last budget announced by President Tinubu, there is a sizable amount going into security. This is important because it really decides whether investment is coming or not.

“Finally, we need to attract the confidence of investors. They need to know that when they put money, this is how the money will come back. So that’s at the macro level and this is mostly done by public sector.”

She also said: “There’s always new pledges, new support for developing countries for the number of these does not translate into real transformational projects are talking about large investment, not this small you know hundred thousand, $1,000,000 projects here and there. Africa and Nigeria specifically needs huge amounts of investment. One of the key things that came out during the high level ministerial dialogue on climate finance, and this was from a Southeast Asian minister, is that billions is not what developing countries need. We need trillions so there is need to really step up and see that money begin to unlock.

“Debt is important, but Nigeria needs to position herself to negotiate that the developed countries are pouring in. Private capital has most of the funds, not the public sector, so we need to interest private capital, meaning that we need to have projects that show that this good return on investment. So some of the issues why that’s based capital for climate was pushed back during the cup was that you know, most of the developed economies are the ones who caused the climate issues.

“The more debt, so we don’t want to put our developing countries in more debt, we want them to definitely meet the climate goal in a sustainable way in a way that is also just, you know, in terms of the climate conversations. We are putting forward that Nigeria and developing countries need to pursue equity capital. The reason is because the more equity you have, for example, if you have a big portfolio of projects and a big percentage of that is investors’ money, that’s equity capital, and then the need for debt is minimized.

Similarly, the Deputy Director at Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa), Amie Alex-Irobi, said: “The National Action Committee on African Continental Free Trade is to make sure that government entities, all the MDA’s and government and the private sector operators work together to enable Nigerians achieve the full potentials. The essence of this African continental free trade is to enable African trade among them.

“Nigerians are enlightened of the opportunities in the African Continental Free Trade and to see how they can connect with the opportunities it provides because that’s the market that has over $23 billion waiting. I am busy looking for Western economies that are very comfortable and will give us conditions why they will take our goods and why they will not take our goods and at what price.”