The Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, has urged investors to harness investment opportunities in the state, assuring an enabling environment.
Henzodaily reports that Governor Mohammed stated this during the third zonal sensitization and advocacy workshop organized by Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) for diaspora direct investment in the Northeast region.
Represented by the Commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning, and Multilateral Coordination, Amina Muhammad Katagum, the Governor commended NiDCOM for organizing such a sensitization workshop to educate Nigerians at home and abroad.
He noted that the diaspora constitutes a major source of potential investment to Nigeria, and a source of knowledge, ideas, skills, experiences and expertise that can turn around the fortune of Nigeria.
The Governor stressed that it was time for the region to look inwards and tap into the enormous opportunities of the diasporas and end the era of total dependence on the statutory federal allocation and VAT sharing.
Mohammed added that the northeast must prioritize revenue generation through appropriate exploration of the diasporas’ potentials.
He urged the northeastern government to leverage this golden opportunity of the workshop to learn the how, when, where and what can attract the diaspora of the individual states.
Governor Mohammed reaffirmed his commitment to leveraging and harnessing the huge untapped potentials of the Bauchi diaspora by creating an enabling environment and keep improving the ease of doing business to bring about the prosperity of the state across all sectors.
Earlier, the Chairman/CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, highlighted the huge material, mineral, agricultural, and human resources that the Northeastern region of Nigeria is endowed with that can be harnessed for national development.
Represented by the Commission’s Secretary, Sule Yakubu Bassi, NiDCOM Chairman noted that while Nigerians in the diaspora have remitted over 90 billion dollars as diaspora home remittances through cash, intellectual property, goods, services and investments in the past five years, there is the need for the sensitization and advocacy workshop for both Nigerians home and abroad to catalyze development in Nigeria.
Other dignitaries present at the workshop include Commissioner for Works, Titus Kukah; Gombe state Diaspora Focal Officer, Jamilu Jafaru; Yobe State Diaspora officer, Alhaji Modu; and some members of the State House of Assembly, and members of private sectors.
According to the Commission’s spokesman, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, the Bauchi advocacy was the third in the series of sensitization workshops on the promotion of diaspora investment potentials, having done that of South West in Lagos and South East in Enugu State.