President Bola Tinubu, on the sidelines of the G20 Compact with Africa Economic Conference on Monday, met with German Federal Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, where he noted that Nigeria’s determined pursuit of German investment in targeted sectors of the Nigerian economy was focused on critical growth-enabling industries in energy, transportation, and electric power production, transmission, and distribution.
Recognizing the success of Siemens AG in positively transforming the quantity and quality of Egyptian electric power supply, the President noted that under his leadership, the staggered and unsteady implementation of the Siemens-supported Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) would take on new urgency with a more deliberate process of project execution, even as he recognized the need to embrace Siemens technology in all aspects of the project for project sustainability.
Aware of the new 2,000km ultra-high-speed rail network that Siemens is presently constructing across 60 cities in Egypt at the speed of 230km/hour, the President further expressed his keen interest in the role Siemens can play in modernizing and expanding Nigeria’s rail network with the provision of ultra-modern trains and railways which can more than double the speed of existing 100km/hour standard-gauge systems presently operating in Nigeria.
To this, the German Chancellor expressed readiness but with an acknowledgment of the need to resolve administrative and financial hurdles brought about by governance problems emanating from prior administrations in the sector.
