How Buhari opened up the economy to investors

Before the coming of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, getting a business registered and starting a business in Nigeria were cumbersome.

Today, to register a business in Nigeria is as simple as ABC. Everything has been made quite simple courtesy of the far reaching reforms introduced by the Buhari administration.

~The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo was set up in July 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari to remove bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria and make the country a progressively easier place to start and grow a business.

~After months of diligent work, the Council made business incorporation process basically an online matter - on the CAC’s Company Registration Portal. The need for lawyers, accredited agents and chartered secretaries was made optional, reducing the cost of registration of companies.

~PEBEC also succeeded in getting the National Collateral Registry Bill and the Credit Bureau Services Bill passed into law to make it easier for businesses to get access to credit.

~It also simplified the Visa-On-Arrival process to include e-submission of applications to dedicated desk at Nigeria Immigration Service and also eliminated manual baggage searches at airport.

~Rather than weeks or months, approval for reservation of names and incorporation of companies (if application form is completed and required documents available) became matters that can be concluded within hours.

~The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report for 2018 therefore placed Nigeria in the 145th position. This was 24 positions better than the 169th position the nation was ranked in the 2017 report.

~The World Bank also rated Nigeria to be among the top 10 reformers globally. The Bank was impressed with Nigeria for implementing the most regulatory reforms in the area of getting credit, starting a business, dealing with construction permits and paying taxes.