Dr Muda Yusuf, Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, says Nigeria must urgently address its infrastructure deficits to remain competitive in global trade, stressing that investors are driven by returns rather than ideology.
Speaking in an interview on ARISE News on Sunday while reviewing Nigeria’s participation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yusuf said the forum provided Nigeria with a critical opportunity to engage investors and multilateral institutions directly.
“If you really want to engage investors, you want to engage multilateral organizations, there is no single more important forum than the World Economic Forum,” he said.
Yusuf described Nigeria’s participation, including the debut of the Nigeria House in Davos, as valuable, noting the scale and profile of the gathering.
“We had in attendance about 64 heads of state and government. We had over 800 top CEOs, not SMEs, top CEOs. We had the head of all the multilateral institutions that you can think of,” he said.
He added that the forum offered Nigeria a platform to address reputational challenges and project its reform agenda.
“When you are there on ground to tell your own story, it makes a whole lot of difference,” Yusuf said.
On outcomes from the 2026 World Economic Forum, Yusuf pointed to the launch of Nigeria’s investment playbook as a major highlight, saying it moved engagement beyond general appeals.
“You must be able to put on the table specific investment opportunities and projects, which is what happened at this last Davos,” he said.
He listed solid minerals, the digital and creative economy, climate finance and agricultural food systems as sectors highlighted in the playbook, adding that these were areas where Nigeria had comparative advantages.
Addressing comments by World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo Iweala on the need for value addition, Yusuf said the principle was sound but warned that structural constraints were limiting Nigeria’s ability to compete.
“Because of the structural issues that we are currently contending with, value addition is coming at a very high cost and is creating a competitiveness challenge,” he said.
Yusuf said infrastructure deficits remained one of Nigeria’s biggest obstacles to economic competitiveness, calling for increased public and private investment.
“One of the biggest challenges we have in the Nigerian economy today is infrastructure deficits,” he said.
He noted that while some projects could attract private capital, others would require government intervention.
“For those ones that are not bankable, we can work out in some kind of partnership with government or the government can also exclusively take on some of those heavy lifts in terms of infrastructure provision,” Yusuf said.
He highlighted power, rail, roads and waterways as critical areas requiring urgent investment, adding that competitiveness ultimately determined success in international trade.
“International trade is about competitiveness at the end of the day,” he said.
On Africa’s representation at Davos, Yusuf rejected claims of fragmentation, arguing that investment promotion was necessarily country specific.
“We are talking about attracting investments. As a country, we cannot go there and be asking for people to come and invest in Africa. We will be asking them to come and invest in a particular location,” he said.
He also said Nigeria’s engagement at global forums was driven by economic diplomacy rather than ideological alignment.
“They are not engaging from an ideological point of view. They are engaging from a point of view of returns on investment,” Yusuf said.
Yusuf said Nigeria was operating a flexible foreign economic policy, with interests spanning China, the US, Russia and other regions.
“We are operating in some kind of flexible diplomacy. At the heart of which is Nigerian interest,” he said.
On likely sources of investment, Yusuf said Asia and the Middle East were expected to play a leading role, citing higher risk appetite among investors from those regions.
“We are expecting a lot more in terms of investment from Asia, for instance. China is a leading one. The Middle East is another very big one,” he said.
He added that Europe and the US remained important, particularly in sectors such as technology and finance, but said risk perception continued to shape investor behaviour.
“They are looking at your country risk. They are looking at the perception. They are looking at what is in it for them as businesses,” Yusuf said.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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