Investment stakeholders have called on Nigeria’s state governments to strengthen interstate collaboration and work together to turn investment opportunities into funded projects, businesses and measurable economic outcomes.
The call was made on Wednesday in Abuja at an investment mobilisation stakeholders’ roundtable organised by the Forum of State Investment Promotion Agencies of Nigeria (FOSIPAN) in partnership with Brave Icons Global (BIG).
The event was held under the theme, “From Opportunity to Capital Outcomes: Building Nigeria’s Subnational Investment Mobilisation Structure.”
Participants said stronger collaboration among states could help reduce investment risks, improve project preparation and make subnational investment opportunities more attractive to domestic and international capital.
States Need Stronger Project Preparation
Speaking during a panel session titled “Closing the Conversion Gap: What It Takes to Move State Opportunities from Pipeline to Capital Deployment,” Ahmed Abdulrazak, Director of Contract Compliance at the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), said states needed to better understand investment risks and strengthen their capacity to prepare bankable projects.
According to Abdulrazak, many state governments still develop projects independently when greater cooperation could help them pool financial and technical resources.
He said effective project preparation was essential for attracting private capital but could also be expensive.
“Most times, based on our experience in ICRC, we find out that the cost of project preparation is always so high. So, over the years, we have trained a lot of ministries, departments and agencies in understanding how investments work and how you can attract private capital,” he said.
Abdulrazak urged states to assess the financial viability of proposed projects and identify ways to manage potential risks, noting that partnerships could help reduce some of the costs and challenges involved.
States Can Leverage Their Comparative Advantages
David Oke, Vice President of the World Trade Centre, Lagos, also called for greater coordination among Nigeria’s subnational governments.
He said interstate collaboration needed to move beyond broad commitments and become properly structured and operationalised.
Such cooperation, he argued, would allow states to combine their respective strengths, attract larger investments and support more sustainable economic development.
Oke also warned against politicising investment promotion and urged state governments to invest in the people responsible for driving investment and economic development.
According to him, building strong local expertise would be critical to ensuring that states can effectively identify, structure and market investment opportunities.
Credible Local Partners Can Help De-Risk Investments
Paul Healey, Head of Green Growth and Private Sector at the British High Commission in Nigeria, acknowledged that collaboration between states could be difficult because it requires agreements, trust and strong institutional relationships.
However, he said joint project preparation and risk assessment could produce significant benefits.
Healey noted that many overseas institutional investors prefer working with credible local partners because such partnerships provide greater confidence that investors understand the Nigerian market and have a direct stake in the success of projects.
He also stressed that investment de-risking goes beyond financial considerations.
According to Healey, the legal and regulatory environment is equally important to international investors and remains a key consideration for the commission’s commercial partners.
FOSIPAN: $1tn Economy Must Be Built, Not Proclaimed
Earlier, FOSIPAN Chairman Dr Terhemen Kpenkaan said the roundtable was designed to address a major challenge facing Nigeria’s subnational investment ecosystem: why promising opportunities often fail to become financed projects, productive businesses and measurable improvements in citizens’ livelihoods.
Kpenkaan, who is also Executive Secretary of the Benue State Investment Promotion Agency, said Nigeria’s ambition of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030 would require deliberate action rather than declarations.
“A one trillion dollars economy could not be proclaimed into existence but had to be built,” he said.
He described State Investment Promotion Agencies as increasingly important components of Nigeria’s investment ecosystem.
According to him, the agencies are becoming investor-facing coordination points that help investors navigate government institutions while bringing relevant ministries, departments and agencies together.
“Capital does not move towards opportunity alone. It moves towards credible institutions, prepared transactions, manageable risks and clear pathways to decision,” Kpenkaan said.
SIP-NG Targets the Investment Conversion Gap
Kpenkaan said the Subnational Investment Pipeline Nigeria (SIP-NG) programme was designed to address the gap between investment opportunities identified by states and the capital required to turn those opportunities into operating projects.
The initiative seeks to strengthen the ability of states to prepare, coordinate and present investment opportunities in a way that can attract financing.
For Nigeria’s states, stakeholders at the Abuja roundtable said the challenge is no longer simply identifying investment opportunities. The focus must increasingly shift toward preparing viable projects, reducing risks, building institutional capacity and creating clear routes through which investors can commit capital.
Greater collaboration among states, they argued, could help achieve those objectives while supporting Nigeria’s broader ambition of expanding economic output and attracting more private investment.
Source: NAN
