By Goodluck Ikiebe
The Director General, Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission, ICRC, Mr Michael Joe Ohiani, says that African countries should be able to develop capability and source for resources to develop their infrastructure by using Public Private Partnership model.
Mr Ohiani disclosed this in Abuja during an interaction with newsmen on the benefits of Nigeria’s membership of Africa’s PPP Association.
“We recently hosted the association in Abuja, with the opening ceremony graced by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha”.
Ohiani explained that the essence of it is that if you want to succeed in anything even if you want to get help from outside, there is need to look inward and see how you can hold yourself in providing that leadership. Once you now do that, people will now come and support you, adding that, that is the thrust of the platform.
“That’s why the network becomes imperative and takes critical position. You know we are gradually moving to free trade, the free trade that entails you have open border for all kinds of skills professionals. What we have looked at and done is that, how can you quickly make Nigerian professionals in terms of those who will be packaging PPP, how do you send them out, how do you now explore the opportunities available in other sisters countries”
Nigeria’s ICRC Boss said the essence of the African network is to pool people together, experts across Africa, and how we can also leverage on the resources. Stating that, “ Nigeria has a huge market, taking into consideration, our population, so you can’t develop this market if you don’t develop your capacity, that is part of what the network tends to achieve”.
