N2.72bn capital vote insufficient for trade, investment push — Minister

Jumoke Oduwole, the minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, has cautioned that the Federal Ministry’s proposed N2.72 billion capital allocation for 2026 is far too small to support the programmes required to advance Nigeria’s industrialisation, trade growth, and investment drive.

Oduwole spoke while defending the ministry’s 2026 budget proposal before a joint sitting of the Senate Committees on Trade and Investment and Industry, where she urged the National Assembly to approve a targeted increase in capital funding.

She warned that inadequate resources would significantly limit the ministry’s capacity to contribute to President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and the goal of building a trillion-dollar economy.

She stressed that the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment plays a critical role in reducing the country’s dependence on oil, expanding non-oil exports, boosting local production, and attracting domestic and foreign investments.

“The proposed capital allocation of N2.72 billion will be a stretch in meeting the full demands of our programmes and capital projects,” Oduwole told lawmakers.

“Given the scope of our responsibilities, we respectfully seek the committee’s support for targeted enhancement of our capital allocation to enable us to effectively deliver on our mandate.”

Umar Sadiq, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment, acknowledged the ministry’s importance to the administration’s economic ambitions, noting that diversification beyond oil was key to achieving a trillion-dollar economy.

“We are all aware of the renewal agenda of Mr. President, which is essentially to ensure that we have a trillion-dollar economy,” Sadiq said.

“The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment is a major partner in achieving this objective outside the oil sector.”

He, however, said legislative backing would depend on transparency, accountability, and clear results, adding that lawmakers were focused on tangible outcomes rather than promises.

Similarly, Francis Fadahunsi, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Industry, called on the ministry to clearly show how its agencies were impacting Nigerians’ lives, particularly through job creation, export expansion and industrial growth.

In her presentation, Oduwole highlighted the ministry’s performance over the last two years, arguing that the outcomes justified increased capital funding.

She revealed that Nigeria attracted about $21 billion in capital importation in the first 10 months of 2025, up from $12 billion in 2024 and less than $4 billion in 2023.

She attributed the rise to targeted interventions, including the development of over $5 billion in bankable projects, sector-specific deal rooms and Nigeria’s first Domestic Investor Summit.

She also disclosed that the ministry had resolved more than 50 major investor bottlenecks and conducted over 100 bilateral investment engagements with countries including the United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Japan.

According to her, sustained engagement under the Nigeria, UK Economic and Trade Partnership saw UK investors account for about 65 per cent of foreign capital inflows into Nigeria in 2025.

On trade, the minister said Nigeria recorded a surplus in 2025, with total trade estimated at N113 trillion in the first three quarters of the year.

Exports, she added, grew by 11 per cent year-on-year to about $6.1 billion, the highest level recorded by the country.

She explained that ministry-driven export facilitation initiatives, expanded export warehouses, new air cargo routes within Africa and improved implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) helped boost Nigeria’s intra-African trade by 14 per cent.

In the industrial sector, Oduwole disclosed that special economic zones generated more than $500 million in export earnings and created over 20,000 direct jobs in 2025.

She also pointed to the Federal Executive Council’s approval of the National Industrial Policy and Nigeria’s successful bids to host CANEX 2026 and the Intra-Africa Trade Fair 2027.

Despite these gains, she warned that funding gaps were already undermining the ministry’s effectiveness.

While personnel and overhead costs were fully utilised in 2024 and 2025, she said capital releases had been erratic, noting that no capital funds had been released to the ministry in 2025 as at the time of the budget defence.

Some lawmakers expressed concern that the 2026 proposal largely rolled over the 2025 budget in line with federal guidelines, leaving little room for fresh capital projects.

Responding, Oduwole acknowledged the rollover framework but insisted that stronger capital support remained essential.

“Our ministry is programme-led and service-oriented. We are not a revenue-generating ministry in the conventional sense,” she said.

“We facilitate investment, solve regulatory bottlenecks, open markets for Nigerian products and support domestic investors. To do this effectively, we need capital resources.”

She added that plans for 2026 include scaling up non-oil export promotion, deepening AfCFTA implementation, deploying digital platforms for investor and trade facilitation, and extending trade and investment support to sub-national levels across all geopolitical zones, initiatives she said would be difficult to implement under the current capital allocation.

Members of the committees said the issues raised would be taken into account as scrutiny of the 2026 budget proposals continues, amid growing calls to ensure that key economic ministries are adequately funded to drive growth, jobs and economic diversification.

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