By Our Reporter

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State is making a bold pitch to investors: look beyond Lagos’ skyline and tap into Nasarawa’s land, minerals, and agriculture. 

Speaking on Monday at the Invest in Lagos Summit 3.0, themed “Lagos Business Gateway to Africa” and declared open by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Governor Sule positioned Nasarawa as a credible partner, not a rival, to Nigeria’s commercial capital.

The Governor, who also chairs the North Central Governors Forum, joined other state leaders on a strategic panel to market their investment profiles.

Sule, a former oil and gas executive who managed African Petroleum in Houston and later served as Group Managing Director of Dangote Group across 11 countries, said his private sector background shaped his approach to governance since taking office in 2019.

“I came in with a blueprint, not blanket promises,” he told the audience. Instead of chasing every sector, his administration commissioned a diagnostic to identify Nasarawa’s comparative advantages. That gave birth to a focused strategy around solid minerals, agriculture, renewable energy, healthcare, and education, and the creation of a one-stop investment company to cut red tape.

The payoff, he argued, is already visible in solid minerals. Nasarawa now hosts Nigeria’s biggest lithium processing plant, backed by an executive order mandating in-state processing for all miners. A second facility, with 6,000 tons per day capacity, awaits presidential commissioning. A Chinese firm processing Nasarawa lithium concentrate has also invited Sule to China on July 28 for the launch of a battery plant, an opportunity he said he will use to lobby for a second-stage processing facility to be sited in Nasarawa.

Since 2019, Sule said the state has attracted over $2.3 billion in foreign and domestic investment across minerals, agriculture, and real estate.

Confidence is rising, he added, noting that the state’s third investment summit last month was fully funded by private sponsors, “not a single naira from government”.

On agriculture, Sule touted Nasarawa’s scale: home to the country’s largest rice operation and Dangote Sugar’s 68,000-hectare sugarcane farm, a landmass he said dwarfs Equatorial Guinea and Victoria Island combined.

His message to Lagos and other states was clear: “See Nasarawa as your production base, not your competitor.”

The numbers back his claim. Internally generated revenue has climbed from ₦7 billion in 2019 to about ₦39 billion in 2025, with a ₦52 billion target in sight. Sule credited part of the surge to President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, which he said have freed states to fund development without borrowing from banks.

He thanked Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for personally securing his attendance and commended Vice President Shettima for backing Nasarawa’s development agenda.

With lithium in the ground, vast farmland at its disposal, and investor interest climbing, Nasarawa is no longer content to sit in the shadow of bigger economies.

Governor Sule’s message at the Lagos summit was simple: the gateway to Africa may start in Lagos, but the raw materials and farmland powering it lie just up the road in Nasarawa.