President Bola Tinubu, during his meeting with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands at his official residence, known as The Catshuis in The Hague, marketed the lithium deposits in Nigeria on Thursday.
According to Tinubu, Nigeria is well-positioned to power the clean energy future of Europe and the world with its high-grade lithium deposits.
The President said Nigeria offers immense opportunities across a pool of sectors, insisting that his administration is deepening reforms to enhance the investment climate.
He captivated the audience by saying Nigeria seeks robust, balanced, and mutually beneficial partnerships that will bring about value addition in areas like solid minerals.
His words: “Taking a holistic view of the world order, there is a tremendous opportunity between us across trade spheres but especially in solid minerals, where we have high-grade lithium deposits that we know can power the clean energy future of the world. There is an excellent value-additive opportunity in Nigeria. The world knows us for oil. They will soon know us for our greater innovative exploits in other areas.
“We have an extremely dynamic youth population in Nigeria. It is a young country; 70 per cent of our people are under the age of 30, and when we are referring to 200 million plus citizens, it represents both a massive workforce and a massive market for Dutch and other international investors.
“If our young people know they can achieve a good future in Nigeria, they will stay home and build our nation to greatness. Lawful migration of trained Nigerian minds and hands will be a benefit to Europe, and irregular migration will no longer be a source of fear in Europe if we partner effectively.
“This is what we want and it is why we are adamant about providing student loans and new credit opportunities to not only enhance the skills of our people but also to ensure that they can access a higher quality of life within their legitimate incomes. We will transform our economy, and our young people will be the reason why.”
President Tinubu asserted that Nigerians have tremendous confidence in themselves and that his confidence in the Nigerian people gave him the courage to make difficult decisions on their behalf, given his full awareness of the need to give Nigerians the long-term tools they need to succeed.
‘Nigeria has high-grade Lithium deposits’ – Tinubu tells European leaders