By Favour Nnabugwu
The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has called on the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to  intensify efforts at sustaining  the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP).

Officer-In-Charge of UNIDO in Nigeria,  Mr Chima Ezedinma at the opening ceremony of the workshop  on ‘NIRP Managers Capacity Building Programme on Investment Project Appraisal’,  said that the NIRP, being one of the fruits of the partnership between UNIDO and Nigeria, should be sustained in spite of the change in leadership.

Ezedinma affirmed that UNIDO has been partnering with the Nigerian Government, especially in the area of industrialisation.

“It is not a plan that should be phased out or abandoned in the face of a change in government because industrial revolution is for economic good, not political.

He decried high unemployment and low contribution of the manufacturing sector to the growth of the economy saying there is need to take non-oil sector more seriously.

“UNIDO is worried about some pressing issues such as massive unemployment and the low contribution of manufacturing to the growth of the economy.

“Former President  Goodluck Jonathan launched NIRP in February as a roadmap to industrial revolution and promotion of local manufacturing.”

Ezedinma asserted that the workshop is the first formal training under the UNIDO implemented programme, which objective is to develop the capabilities in the NIRP implementation teams to be able to distinguish  between  the profitability of an industrial  project for the investor and  the benefits of the same project can have on the economy.

Furthermore, he averred that the trainees numbering about 60 from different institutions across the nation, would learn the skills to measure and assess both the private and social costs and benefits of investment projects.

“This is an important capability for the NIRP teams to acquire because the process of implementing the NIRP is one in which decisions need to be made about how to select and promote industrial projects.”

In an interview with Vanguard, Engr. Omotanwa Awobokun of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment said NIRP was proactively designed to salvage Nigeria’s economy from its monolithic trend.

The NIRP, Awobokun said, is a game changer for Nigeria to further deepen the promotion of diversification through effective exploitation of resources where the country has competitive and comparative advantage.

She added that the NIRP was tagged the most ambitious and comprehensive industrialisation programme because it is based on the areas where Nigeria has competitive and comparative advantage such as automotive, garment, among others.

Those sub-sectors, she noted, have been identified as areas where Nigeria can be number one in Africa and top 10 globally.