Leye Kupoluyi has just been elected the 44th President and Chairman of the Council of Nigeria’s leading chamber of commerce, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI). In a recent interview with journalists, he outlined his agenda for the chamber and addressed issues affecting the country’s manufacturing sector. Josephine Okojie-Okeiyi was there.
As the newly appointed President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), what initiatives do you intend to introduce to reposition the chamber?
First, I will continue to focus on what we are: an organisation that advocates for a better business environment, a stronger economy, and a better future, both for businesses and citizens. Our mandate is clear; we need to elevate the LCCI into a strategic and influential institution and steer conversation towards achieving national economic progress.
Beyond this, we will advocate for more development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), robust membership welfare, and I will push for more women and youths, because they are the support system of the business growth and prosperity of any nation.
By including more youths, more data-driven advocacy will happen, and we will structure our leadership to encompass more activities that will guide us to the next level. I aim to empower more youths into leadership positions and guide them into business.
I want to empower businesses to conquer our environment (Nigeria), as a marketplace, as a place of manufacturing; then West Africa and finally, the whole of Africa, exploiting the opportunities the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) will give us.
Why has the growth of the real sector not received the attention it deserves?
I strongly believe that the Nigeria First policy and 30 percent procurement from local manufacturers is a step in the right direction.
There are so many things needed to improve the sector: power, access to credit and protecting the local market. If we allow the market to continue to be flooded with foreign goods the way it is now, we will continue to weaken our local manufacturing sector.
The government must provide better access to funding and at single-digit interest rates to help manufacturers. What is the difference between a developed country and a developing one? It is simply each country’s manufacturing base. It has nothing to do with the mineral resources in that country.
If you look at the list of developed countries globally, their manufacturing sectors are strong. Take China and India, for instance, look at their industrial base and compare it with ours. Most drugs we use in Nigeria now are from India. Why can’t we develop our own and start exporting to others? If a country wants to be developed, manufacturing is a major area of interest for that country.
Our youths have shown that they have the skills. Many of our youths who have left Nigeria and are all over the world are providing the services they are unable to provide back home. What this means is that we must give our youths the necessary environment needed for them to excel within Nigeria.
We must make our environment conducive for young people to innovate and the government must live up to its expectations before we can talk about industrialisation.
Currently, the business environment is challenged by global disruptions, and geopolitical tensions, trade uncertainty and policy inconsistencies. How will you support businesses and manufacturers in navigating these difficult times?
Tough times always present opportunities. It may be tough, but there are opportunities. We will increase our research and advocacy to keep our members abreast of opportunities available to them, even within these tough times.
Yes, there are so many things happening around the world, but I can tell you Nigeria is better off now than it was two years ago because of some of the hard reforms that the government carried out. It might not look like that now, but we will reap the benefits soon.
We must increase oil production because we still need that money and increase our non-oil exports. This can only be done by improving local manufacturing, especially on the agriculture side.
However, improving agricultural production means there must be improved security for them to go to the farm. If we actually check what is driving inflation, a good part of it is food-related. If our agricultural production can improve, then we can feed both humans and our factories. All in all, I believe 2026 will be a year of appreciable growth as a nation.
Read also:Â LCCI projects economy to grow 7% in 2026
What reforms do you think are most urgently needed right now to improve the business environment?
First and foremost, we must sort out our regulatory issues and harmonise our regulatory environment. We must coordinate our fiscal and monetary policies and revamp infrastructure.
Infrastructure doesn’t mean just roads alone, though good, safe roads are important to the growth of businesses.
It also includes power and better broadband penetration. Power, as we know, is extremely important to every business and industrialisation and if we don’t tackle the power situation, our industrialisation efforts will remain stagnant.
Also, we must develop our agro-industrial sector, as that is where the raw materials needed for industrialisation will come from. Cassava, for instance, has a lot of value beyond garri that we know and eat. Why are we not exploiting its numerous uses like the Chinese do?
Manufacturing contribution to GDP has continued to shrink yearly. How can the country turn this around?
Part of our advocacy will be to draft a new national policy. Working with the government, we will put together an industrialisation blueprint. There is nothing we want to do in Nigeria or Africa that others are not doing.
As I said earlier, when you look at developed countries around the world, one thing they have in common is a strong manufacturing sector. I don’t think any country can become developed or industrialised simply by its natural resources alone.
Having natural resources is not part of the indices used to measure development. If we want to get ourselves on the list of developed nations, we don’t have any other choice but to start manufacturing.
Increasing our fuel or oil production will not take us there. Increasing our oil production can give us the resources needed for industrialisation, however.
We realise that young people are the ones who can drive Nigeria’s industrialisation and this is why I am involving them heavily in the chamber’s activities so they can prepare their tomorrow now. Don’t sit and blame those in government. Come and let us look for a solution together.
I’m sure the government has some people who are part of the industry who are in government right now, who understand the importance of industries and who know that they will still leave government and come back to the industry.
I don’t want to say our people are not employable because the people we say are not employable leave the country and suddenly become employed when they get abroad. This means we must look inwards. Our innovation hub here trains people who will drive industrialisation. We need more people to join.
How do you intend to deepen participation and strengthen Nigerian business representation in the ECOWAS region?
When I talked about helping MSMEs scale up, have better access to funding and documentation for export, it is because I want our businesses to begin to take better advantage of the agreement. About two years ago, intra-African trade used to be less than 11 per cent. Now, it is about 14 percent.
If in the next two years, we can move it to 25 -30 per cent, it will reflect positively on many of our businesses. When I said I intend to focus on youth and women, it is because many of these export businesses are being led by youths and women. If we can invest in them, we will not just conquer our immediate environment, but also maximise AfCFTA.
Take our creative industry, for example, if we standardise it properly, we can take over the world with it. Our fashion, music, arts and so on are doing well and if properly structured and exported, can dominate the market effortlessly.
Our fintech is borderless; it is being used for e-commerce, for payments and so on. To thrive within AfCFTA, we must harmonise all the documentation and regulations hindering free market trade. We must remove all the obstacles that prevent and discourage people from exporting.
We may not have to have a single entity like the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) entity for the whole of Africa, but we can put a barcode on a product, for instance and when it is scanned in, let us say, Ghana, it shows it has met all required documentation.
Regarding intra-African trade, a major obstacle that has been identified is the different issues with customs and certification. As we are complaining about it in Nigeria, so also are they complaining about it in Ghana, Sierra Leone and so on.
If we have a uniform standard for ECOWAS, for instance, if a product has been certified as okay in Ghana, it doesn’t need to undergo extra certification to enter Nigeria again and vice versa.
