Afe Babalola urges FG to approve FTZ for ABUAD’s industrial park

The Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, has urged the federal government to expedite the approval of a Free Trade Zone for the institution’s industrial park.

He stated that the 132-unit industrial park could transform Nigeria’s economy if properly executed and utilized.

Babalola made the appeal while hosting delegates from the China-Nigeria Consortium on Industry and Education during the ABUAD-China Partnership Forum meeting in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital.

The legal icon described the Federal Government’s continued refusal to issue a free trade certificate to ABUAD as both discouraging and embarrassing. He noted that the approval would allow foreign companies to establish businesses in the park, thereby boosting the nation’s economy.

According to him, a free trade zone would facilitate international trade and industrial activities, ultimately contributing to the country’s economic growth.

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Babalola emphasized that such progressive ideas would have been embraced under the defunct regional government system, reiterating his call for a people-oriented constitution to foster national development.

He said:
“In 1999, I traveled to China. At that time, China was a very poor country, but the Chinese were very wise. They created an area called a free trade zone, which allowed countries like the United States and Germany to set up industries there.

“Unknown to those countries, the Chinese learned from the foreign industries, which eventually contributed to their remarkable global development today.

“However, in the past two years, I have applied for the same concept here, but the government has refused to grant us a free trade zone certificate.

“There is an American company ready to begin manufacturing cars in my industrial park, but the lack of this certificate has stalled their plans.

“If we still had the regional government system we used to have, we would be more developed than we are today. This is why we need a new constitution.”

The Secretary-General of the China-Nigeria Consortium on Industry and Education, Ms. Wendy Wang, speaking through an interpreter, praised Afe Babalola for his visionary achievements in education, engineering, and health.

She described ABUAD as the best institution in Nigeria, highlighting its integration of cutting-edge technologies into its curriculum.

ABUAD Vice-Chancellor, Professor Smaranda Olarinde, described the visit as a replica of an earlier working tour she made to China with a select ABUAD team, sponsored by Babalola.

She emphasized that, with this partnership, ABUAD would soon begin manufacturing vehicles and robots.