President Tinubu Set To Attend 78th UNGA In New York

President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to leave Abuja on Sunday, September 17th, to participate in the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held in New York, United States of America (USA).

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelali, disclosed this to the State House correspondents on September 15th. Ngelale stated that in addition to the General Assembly activities, the President is set to engage in a series of important discussions with multinational leaders concerning digital transformation, innovation, and investment in Nigeria.

He said the President will also participate in important summits focusing on Sustainable Development Goals and climate ambition. Bilateral meetings with various world leaders will emphasize investment and economic development diplomacy.

“Aside from the engagements he’s going to be having at the General Assembly, there are a series of very important side activities that will have wide-ranging ramifications on the Nigerian economy. Following Mr. President’s successful trip to New Delhi for the G-20 and the staggering amount of investment he has been able to attract to Nigeria in a very short period of time, he is going to continue advancing very aggressively on his economic development, diplomatic drive, to attract foreign direct investment into the country.

So with that, I would like to inform you that His Excellency Mr. President will be having the following meetings with major chief executives and leaders of multinational firms cutting across multiple sectors of the economy.

The President will be meeting with the President of the Microsoft company worldwide, Brad Smith, with respect to how we can deepen digital transformation in the country, and how we can expand the digital economic footprint in the country to ensure that our micro and small enterprises will have access to the internet and have access to other smart technologies that will facilitate their ability to transact business quickly and efficiently.

Mr. President will also be meeting with Sir Nick Clegg who is the president of Global Affairs for Meta technologies, that is expected to be a wide-ranging conversation with respect to how we can leverage on new innovations such as artificial intelligence and certain other applications to impact the way we do business in Nigeria.

He will also be meeting with the global CEO of General Electric. Of course, General Electric is a very well-known international organization that cuts across multiple sectors, they have very deep involvement in the energy sector electric power generation aviation, you know, engine production for multiple modes of transportation, amongst many other inputs. So we expect that to be a very important interaction,” Ngelale said.

He announced the President will be meeting with the global CEO of Exxon Mobil Oil and Gas Company. He added that the Federal Government sees this as a major opportunity to once again lay out in detail what Nigeria has on offer with respect to the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act and the fiscal and tax incentives that the current administration is putting forward.

He added that this diplomatic meeting aims to promote and enhance investment in the oil and gas sector, with a particular focus on the expansion of opportunities related to natural gas, rather than solely concentrating on oil.