Representing BoI’s Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Olasupo Olusi, the Group Head for Climate Finance and Sustainability, Lanre Babalola, emphasized that the theme of this year’s summit—Tackling the Issue of Low Productivity in Nigeria—captures both the urgency and the scale of the country’s economic challenge. Productivity, he noted, is not merely a statistic but the foundation of job creation, value addition, and national prosperity.
According to Babalola, sustainable progress requires broad alignment across sectors: infrastructure that supports industrial growth; policies that eliminate bottlenecks; academic institutions producing competent, industry-ready graduates; and private-sector collaboration that drives innovation. He stressed that no single institution, including BoI, can tackle these structural issues alone, but coordinated action could create an ecosystem where Nigerian enterprises stand a real chance of success.
The summit, he added, provides a platform to interrogate the systemic roots of underperformance. Discussions, he said, must confront Nigeria’s overreliance on raw material exports, weaknesses in supply chains, the technology gaps facing MSMEs, and the need to build a workforce ready for a modern, innovation-driven global economy.
Babalola described the country’s potential as immense, rooted in resilience and creativity, but often stifled by an inadequate operating environment. He reaffirmed the Bank of Industry’s commitment to fostering a shift from a consumption-driven structure to one centered on production. For BoI, improving productivity “is a mission, not a metric,” grounded in daily encounters with businesses struggling against structural hurdles—from manufacturers running limited shifts due to power constraints to small businesses unable to scale because of insufficient working capital.
Highlighting BoI’s mandate, he noted that the institution’s investment strategy—spanning long-term financing, working capital solutions, credit guarantees, cluster-based support, and technology adoption—is designed to unlock productivity across multiple sectors. Over time, targeted interventions have helped Nigerian firms expand capacity, replace imports with local products, grow export footprints, and transition MSMEs into fully structured enterprises. The evidence, he said, shows that Nigerians are not inherently unproductive; they are “under-enabled.”
Babalola also outlined BoI’s priority areas—Climate & Sustainability, Youth & Skills, Digital Economy, MSMEs, Infrastructure, and Gender—as critical levers for boosting productivity. Renewable energy reduces operating costs; digital tools enhance efficiency; youth skilling strengthens the future workforce; and supporting women-led businesses expands national output by tapping an underserved economic segment.
He urged participants to treat this year’s summit as a turning point, shifting from analysis to implementation. Nigeria, he argued, must now accelerate productivity-led growth, with BoI prepared to support that trajectory.
The BoI representative commended the summit organizers for maintaining a robust platform where leaders from government, business, academia, and development converge to shape evidence-based policy and practical solutions.
Other speakers at the event, held at the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos, included EFCC Executive Chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede and Dr. Abidemi Adegboye, an economist and lecturer at the University of Lagos.