Vice-President Kashim Shettima has asked the national council on privatisation (NCP) to execute more public-private partnership deals to drive Nigeria’s economic ambitions.
Speaking on Thursday at the first 2026 meeting of the council at the Presidential Villa, Shettima asked the members to accelerate the development of bankable projects for economic expansion.
Details of the engagement were contained in a statement by Stanley Nkwocha, senior special assistant to the president on media and communications (office of the vice president).
“We must accelerate the work of building a pipeline of bankable projects and of executing more public-private partnership transactions to support our economic targets,” Shettima was quoted as saying.
The vice-president said the administration is focused on attracting investment and ensuring that such capital is strategically aligned with national development priorities.
“The task before us is not only to ensure that Nigeria emerges as a safe destination for private investment, but to align that investment with the governing purpose of this administration and the larger destiny of our nation,” he said.
The politician said Nigeria’s $1 trillion economy target would require a deliberate balance between public enterprise and private sector participation.
He said economic prosperity must be intentionally designed and sustained through strong institutions.
Shettima said progress has been recorded across key sectors, including mining, agriculture, and energy, citing the sale of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (Eko Disco) as a signal of renewed investor confidence.
The vice-president attributed “growing investor interest” to policy reforms, noting that credibility, consistency, and clarity remain critical to attracting capital inflows.
He also called for stronger institutional coordination, warning that policy inconsistencies and overlapping mandates could undermine investor confidence and slow reform progress.
Speaking on the outcome of the meeting, Ayodeji Gbeleyi, director-general (DG) of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), said the council was briefed on the progress under the distribution sector recovery programme supported by the World Bank.
He said the programme, valued at $500 million, includes the procurement of 3.22 million prepaid meters to reduce Nigeria’s metering gap, currently estimated at 5.6 million.
“As of today, we have signed a contract for 1,437,000 metres that have already been deployed in the country. As we speak, almost 400,000 of those metres have been installed across the 11 DISCOs within the country,” Gbeleyi said.
“These are all efforts geared towards ensuring that we can have [a] stable power supply in the country and also ensuring that the era of estimated billing is a thing of the past, as promised by His Excellency Mr. President.”
The BPE DG said the bureau’s efforts are aimed at supporting President Bola Tinubu’s economic agenda of repositioning the economy towards achieving a $1 trillion gross domestic product (GDP) in the near term.
To realise this target, he said optimised and revamped assets would be leveraged to drive growth and scale up GDP.
