*Business magnate urges UK to deepen trade ties as Tinubu tackles economic distortions
By Mark Mayah
Nigerian businessman and philanthropist, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has said that Nigeria’s sweeping economic reforms have set the country firmly on the path to recovery and global relevance, urging the United Kingdom and its Western allies to strengthen partnerships with Africa’s largest economy.
Writing in The Telegraph over the weekend, Rabiu said Nigeria had made bold structural changes that position it as a beacon of market reform on the continent.
“Nigeria has decisively turned a corner, embracing market economics under a liberalising government,” he wrote.
The founder of BUA Group pointed to key reforms under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, including the removal of the long-standing fuel subsidy, liberalisation of the foreign exchange regime, and the renewed effort to eliminate political interference in business.
“These reforms are not cosmetic. They are foundational,” he stressed.
According to Rabiu, the government’s decision to scrap the fuel subsidy, which helps said, had consumed over 15% of the federal budget by 2023, was the most significant economic reform in the country’s recent history.
“Fuel in Nigeria was among the cheapest in the world, but the subsidy was bankrupting the government,” he said.
The policy’s removal, though initially unpopular due to rising fuel prices, has freed up resources now being directed toward infrastructure and development.
Rabiu revealed that much of Nigeria’s fuel was being smuggled across borders, feeding an illicit regional market.
“Official fuel consumption has dropped by up to 50%, not because Nigerians are using less fuel, but because we were subsidising the region.”
Another milestone, he noted, was the shift to a market-driven exchange rate system. Under the previous fixed-rate regime, only well-connected groups could access dollars at subsidised rates, while the rest of the economy relied on a parallel black market.
Rabiu recalled, “we used to camp for days at the Central Bank just to get dollar allocations,”. “Now, with a market-based system in place, access is fair, predictable, and transparent.”
He said the reform has boosted liquidity and restored confidence among both local and international investors.
Rabiu also recounted his own experience of political interference during a port project under the previous administration, which required presidential intervention to resolve.
“Five years ago, political connections determined business success,” he said. “Today, that is changing. The playing field is being levelled.”
Rabiu praised the UK’s Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership (ETIP) with Nigeria, Britain’s first such agreement with an African country, as a strategic step in the right direction.
But he called for more action to match rhetoric, following Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s recent remarks on shifting British policy from “aid to investment.”
“For Britain, the ETIP was a bet on reform and resilience,” he said. “Now that Nigeria is delivering on its end, the UK and its allies must deepen this partnership.”
The business mogul argued that with over 200 million people and a strategic location along the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria is well-positioned to become a leading economic hub in Africa.
“The fundamentals are improving, and for investors, the trajectory is what matters,” he concluded.
