OLUSEGUN OBASANJO : Enveloped by global acclaims he has been receiving from the feat he achieved recently due to the critical role he played in the signing of a peace deal between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which led to ceasefire, former Nigerian president, OlusegunObasanjo, is building on his image as a global statesman and a foremost African personality. In his acknowledgment of Obasanjo’s role in the Ethiopia/Tigray war ceasefire, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, taking special cognizance of Obasanjo’s role in the peace talk that led to the parties agreeing to a “permanent cessation of hostilities,’’ lauded the Nigerian leader as an African mascot.
Hardly had he finished swinging this feat that took place in South Africa, with negotiations that began on October 25 in Johannesburg and concluded after 10 days, than Obasanjo began another African initiative. This time, it was an initiative of a vision for industrialization of Africa where Obasanjo is wooing African investors to come together. This initiative is particularly between Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
On Monday, November 31, 2022, the former Nigerian president gathered a team of Nigerian leaders, investors and government top-shots to discuss the need for Africans to come together for greater prospects of the continent. The meeting, which held in Kinshasa, DRC, had two Nigerian governors, four industrialists, security and energy experts, among others, on investment drive to the Central African country. This, Obasanjo is embarking on, with the strong collaboration and request of President Felix Antoine TshisekediTshilombo of the DRC.
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A day before then, Tshisekedi had hosted the team to dinner. There, he commended the role of Obasanjo in the quest to transform DRC into an industrialized country, saying specifically that “Baba accepted my request to bring prospective investors to Congo when I told him, and I must say I am very happy and pleased to welcome you all. He is father of Africa and the people of Congo will continue to appreciate him for his role in bringing peace and unity here.”
The delegation was in DRC on the sidelines of the 8th edition of the MAKUTANO forum, organized at the presidential city of the African Union in Kinshasa. A DRC-Nigeria Roundtable then took place under the patronage of President Tshisekedi with the theme: “Opportunities and models for the creation of Congolese national champions”.
This business meeting was sponsored by former Nigerian President Obasanjo who came to the DRC with about twenty Nigerian businessmen. These men shared their experiences with their Congolese counterparts. The Director General of the National Agency for Investment Promotion, (ANAPI) Antony Nkinzo, and the Congolese Minister of Finance, Nicolas Kazadi drew up the picture of the business climate in the DRC and the macroeconomic framework of the country. National Ministers of sectors related to the business climate and investment were also present as panelists of this roundtable, with companies from the Congo moderating the fruitful exchanges between the economic decision-makers of the two countries.
Nigeria and DRC are two major countries on the African continent with huge business potentials accruing from their natural endowments, vast geography and massive populations.
With a total land area of 2 344 885 km² and straddling the equator, DRC is the third-largest African country. It is only bested by Sudan and Algeria. Because of DRC’s geopolitical position on the African continent, it is strategically positioned in the entire central African region, with its possibilities spanning the entire world. Its strategic geography is such that it is located at the heart of the African continent and shawled by nine neighbouring countries of Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. DRC’s Congo River basin is so important due to its coverage by dense tropical rainforest, making it to be the country’s principal geographical feature. Between the Congo River and the Atlantic Ocean is a short coastline that can be a huge resource.
However, in spite of its mountainous geography, with DRC possessing two different time zones, the country is sparsely populated. Its estimated population by July 2007 is 65 751 512 in July 2007, made up of 250 ethno-linguistic groups who are further divided into four main cultural categories of the Bantu, Sudanese, Nilo-Hamitics and the pygmies, with the Bantu being the largest group. Four national languages of Lingala, Kiswahili, Tshiluba and Kikongo are spoken and the implication of this being diverse ethnicities of the DRC, with multifarious cultural traits.
In terms of religion, DRC boasts of a majority of Christian population, with a rough 46 to 48 per cent of this being Roman Catholics and about 24 to 28 per cent being Protestants. The most renowned of the Christian totems in DRC is the Kimbanguist Church which was named after Prophet Simon Kimbangu. This church boasts of hundreds of thousands of members, especially in the Bas-Congo province. DRC is not without a Muslim population but it is minute, compared to its Christian population. Statistics say this population is about one percent of the population and they are mostly based in the Maniema province. This is not to say that Congolese are not also animists. DRC has a traditional African believer population but is negligible and French is the country’s official language of communication.
DRC is however loaded with economic prosperities in consumer market, liberalization of insurance industry, oil and gas, forest industry, relative growth of middle class, banking and telecom sectors, infrastructure rehabilitation and reconstruction, hydroelectric power, mining (copper, cobalt, diamonds, gold, coltan, etc.) textiles, plastics, pharmaceuticals, electrical machinery, automobiles (especially off-road vehicles and heavy trucks) food (rice, wheat, dried milk products, canned and frozen meat (particularly poultry), fish, tree crops, agricultural processing) food processing equipment and parts, forestry, bilaterally or multilaterally funded infrastructure projects (e.g. World Bank-funded projects) microfinance (e.g. financing of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)) agricultural equipment, among many others which investors can tap into.
Other areas in which DRC is a fertile multi-million dollar investment enclave is in agriculture.Field farming, animal rearing and the planting of various spices and crops are investment-yielders in the Congo. This less value on agriculture has resulted in just two per cent of its arable land being used for farming. Thus, there is the need for cassava processing for a variety of food and industrial uses. Researches have already shown that industrial production of cassava in Congo has a lot of room for profit.
Obasanjo is notable for making right choices. He brought the late Yar’dua and now he has endorsed Peter Obi while warning Nigerians against Atiku Abubakar