The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Wednesday, inaugurated the first African Quality Assurance Centre in Sagamu, Ogun State, aimed at ensuring acceptability of Nigerian products in the global market.
Buhari, who spoke at the occasion, said the centre would give confidence to producers and manufacturers that raw materials from Nigeria were of the highest acceptable quality.
He noted that the centre would help in job creation, address unemployment challenges, and put Nigeria’s industrialisation in sound footing.
A statement made available to The PUNCH quoted the president as saying, “It will improve domestic consumption as our priority is to protect the lives and wellbeing of our people by ensuring the quality of what they consume. This is in line with the Federal Government policy of growing what we eat and eating what we grow.
“Quality assurance places us on the right footing as we continue bro drive Nigeria’s industrialisation.”
In his remarks, the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, said the opening of African Quality Assurance Centre was a significant representation of government commitment to the diversify the nation’s economy from the over reliance on crude oil.
He said, “We are sincerely proud to be part of this success story. Our vision remains to give Ogun State focused and qualitative governance and to create the enabling environment for a public- private sector partnership, which is fundamental to the creation of an enduring economic development and individual prosperity of the people of Ogun.
“For us in Ogun State, we recognised the strategic importance of agriculture in the economic development of Nigeria and Ogun State in particular. Hence the inclusion in our Development Pillars of I.S.E.Y.A. Our main objectives in the agricultural sector include food security, agro value-chain development and agro-industrial transformation.
“The fact is that developing and leveraging on our agricultural sector will create employment generation, poverty alleviation, increased export and foreign exchange earnings.”
He said his administration, since inception, had focused on creating an enabling environment through the implementation of various business-friendly reforms like the establishment of the Ogun State Investment Promotion Agency, enactment of the Public Private Partnership Law and the establishment of the Public Private Partnership Office, to provides a robust regulatory framework for private sector engagement.
The President, African Export and Import Bank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, contended that standard and poor infrastructure have been a constraint of African export, stressing that the aim of the Bank was to facilitate the standard of African export through the establishment of quality assurance centres across the continent of Africa.
