Abdul Samad Rabiu, the Chairman of the BUA Group, was in a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Tuesday.
Speaking with State House correspondents after the meeting, Rabiu said he came to congratulate President Tinubu on his recent victory at the Supreme Court.
The businessman assured President Tinubu of the support of the business community in Nigeria, adding that he wants to see Nigeria being stable and prosperous.
Rabiu said the President, although making difficult decisions, has made the right ones because the way the country had been running up until then was unsustainable.
He said: “We need to support the President to ensure he delivers. As a Nigerian and a business owner, I want to see a Nigeria that is stable and a country that is prosperous.
“Nigeria is the only country we have, and we must all come together to support one another to get the prosperity we so much desire.”
Rabiu also urged Nigerians in the business community and the public to be a little more patient with Tinubu’s administration while it attempts to stabilise the foreign exchange market.
He said: “So I believe we should just be a bit patient, things are already getting better, if you check, you’ll see that the exchange rate in the black market has gone to as high as N1,300 to $1, today, it’s about N1,150 and it will continue to come down.
“A lot of issues, uncertainties and panic, that is settling, and we’re seeing a situation where the exchange rate is coming down because once it gets to a level where people are not able to afford it, nobody will buy, and if you don’t buy, it will come down.
“So my message is that we should be patient, things will definitely get better. Nigeria is endowed with huge resources, we’re a country of over 220 million people with huge resources across the country.
“If you look at the business we’re in now, the cement business, almost 80% of everything we need to produce cement is here in Nigeria, local, and those are the kinds of things we need to encourage mining, agriculture because we have the land, we have the people, and we have the climate and the water.
“So all we need to do is to harness these resources that God has endowed us with. I believe that it’s a temporary thing, things will definitely get better, we just need to be patient.”
Speaking further, Rabiu stated that BUA had commenced the sales of its cement at the rate of N3,500 as against the previous price of N4,500 per bag.
