Ooni hosts Kazakhstan delegation to Business summit in Abuja, praises Tinubu

By Ologeh Joseph Chibu

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi Ojaja II, on Sunday hosted a 30 man delegation from the republic of Kazakhstan, a rich country in Eastern Europe.

The delegation comprises of business gladiators and top government functionaries led by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Alibek Kuantyrov.

The summit was partly to explore business and investment opportunities in Nigeria. The Ooni is the Chairman of Nigeria- Kazakhstan Business Council.

At the summit, Ooni commended President Bola Tinubu, saying the hardship resulting from his bold economic reforms is gradually giving way and yielding fruits for Nigerians.

This was contained in a summary signed by the media aide to the King, Mr Moses Onifade
which was made available to Irohinoodua.

The maiden edition of the Nigeria-Kazakhstan Business Council International conference was held at Transcorp Hilton in Abuja.

The Co-chairman of National Council Of Traditional Rulers Of Nigeria (NCTRN)
Ooni Ogunwusi
added that the arbitrage between the parallel and the official markets has been closed completely for the first time in 20 years.

“We all know the challenges of our dear country. I will give a simple example of a plane at the highest altitude dropping. Any casualty can come up in that process. But we thank God Almighty that things are normalising on a gradual basis in our country. These are all the fruits of the great things we are seeing as a nation now.
We want to send a message on behalf of the private sector and the traditional institution of this country that we are getting there gradually as a nation. For the first time in 20 years, the arbitrage between the parallel market and the official market has been closed completely.

“It is quite evident that now our country is investor friendly. Our capital market is repositioned for a better inflow of foreign investment. Also, many Nigerian entrepreneurs that are here are looking forward to connecting with their associates from Kazakhstan as well,” Ooni said.

As the Chairman , Nigeria – Kazakhstan Business Council, the Ooni also noted that last year’s meeting between Tinubu and his Kazakhstan counterpart birthed the current bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Also at the event, the Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyary, commended the Ooni for his leadership of the traditional institutions in Nigeria, confirming an earlier report by the media that food prices in the country have crashed by 40 per cent.

“Your Majesty this is a great initiative, you have shown the traditional institutions in Nigeria can easily complement government efforts.
I believe you are all aware of what is going on in the commodity markets now. We have people out there surveying markets in the country. I have not even seen some of my staff for the past two weeks.

“They’re monitoring and giving us real-time day-to-day prices of foodstuff, and we have seen how it crashed within the last month by 40 per cent. However, we are also pleading with processors of food to pass down those benefits of the crash to the Nigerian citizens.

“That is very key because people are still using the finished products, same price, without passing it on to the Nigerian population. So we are also monitoring those and keenly watching what is happening in the retail sector.”
When asked what was responsible for the price crash, Kyari disclosed that it was a case of demand outweighing supply.

The minister, however, praised the president for his N200bn intervention in the sector, saying it helped give farmers across the country renewed hope.

“As an economist, I know market prices are determined by supply and demand. It’s simple microeconomics. What happened before was that we were challenged by high demand and low supply. But for 2024, we had a positive harvest, which means we have more supply than in previous years.

“It was a deliberate attempt by Mr President to make sure that we bring down food inflation to the bare minimum. And we are still not relenting. We are looking at price stabilisation mechanisms. Within the next two weeks, we want to roll out the stabilisation to further dampen and bring down the price without, I must say this, discouraging local production.

“Now we have seen people who were hoarding bringing the foodstuff out because they bought it at a high price, and they don’t want to make any losses. We are also discouraging hoarding at the same time. So we have gone into the second season wet. The first part of the dry season was in November. Hopefully, we are going to have a situation of an all-year-round harvesting of staple crops,” The Minister said.

Earlier in his speech, leader of the team and Deputy Minister of Kazakhstan Foreign Affairs, Alibek Kuantyrov, praised the monarch for agreeing to host his delegation at the maiden edition of their bilateral meeting. He described Ooni Ogunwusi as a spectacular African monarch.

While stating his country as an enclave of only 20 million people, Kuantyrov noted that over 90 per cent of the population doesn’t use cash in their transactions.

The Deputy Minister urged the Nigerian government to consider opening an embassy in Kazakhstan to facilitate the ease of doing business with the 1st African country.

“Our goal is how to promote food security for the whole region of Central Asia and other countries in our continent. It was Kazakhstan that established the Organisation of Islamic Food Security. More than 40 countries are now members of this organisation.

“Unfortunately, Kazakhstan doesn’t yet have an embassy here in Nigeria just you don’t also have one in our country. We are hoping Nigeria will open one soon. That is also why our delegation is here. So we will also be discussing how to fast-track our diplomatic arrangements and other logistics,” he said.

It will be recalled, the Ooni of Ife in his capacity as Chairman of the Nigeria-Kazakhstan Business Council, had 3 weeks ago sent the council’s Executive Secretary, Chief Adeniyi Adesoji, a member of the council; Otunba Yera Olafare and the Kazakhstan’s Honourary Consul Nominee in Nigeria Mr Bruce Ayonote Brai to the Republic of Kazakhstan to meet with various investors and business stakeholders in Kazakhstan with a view to wooing them for business relations in Nigeria.

The Ooni’s business team who were in Astana the Kazakhstan’s Seat of power and Capital City for one week held series of talks with with government officials, manufacturers, International Trade merchants, business entrepreneurs and other relevant stakeholders who had been mobilized by the Astana based wing of the Nigeria – Kazakhstan Business Council some of whom are also directors of the Ojaja Silkway Corporation established in Kazakhstan and registered by the Astana International Financial Center(AIFC) to trade in commodities exchange and other investment interests between Nigeria and Kazakhstan.