Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President Mr. President of the Senate, your Excellency. The right honourable speaker, your Excellency. My fellow governors, both past and current, are present, particularly Asiwaju, whom I will speak about momentarily. Mrs Amina Mohammed, the United Nations' deputy secretary-general, is our pride in New York. I enjoy the diversity, the fact that it isn't all male, and the fact that we are still doing the IWS thing for you. Let me also recognize the man for whom we are all here, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the president of Dangote Industries.
Let me also acknowledge, Mr President, the host community, the traditional ruler of the host community that are here also in large numbers. And distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Mr President, in the last 9 months you've been to Lagos 3 times, let me once again welcome you to Lagos. Let me welcome you to the Centre of Excellence, let me welcome you to the State of Aquatic Splendour and you could see the aquatic splendour when we were flying in the helicopter. But let me welcome you to the largest economy and to the largest population in Africa. More importantly, let me welcome you to the largest urea fertilizer plant in Africa as well, the Dangote Fertilizer Plant.
Mr President, like I said, you've had the opportunity to come and commission several projects. Security, with the Nigerian Navy, security for the Nigerian Police Force and of course, the Standard Guage Rail Line project, which are some of the things that we are truly really happy that you have come to Lagos to do. Today we are here to hand over and to commission the biggest fertilizer plant in the whole of Africa.
Just last week you and I, when I was with you in the UK, we discussed some of the things that you said that you wanted to leave behind. How are we treating youth unemployment? How are we ensuring that we can produce what we need to eat? And how are we ensuring that indeed, our youths, we can give them the right employment? This was just a week ago. Mr President, this is a testament of some of the concerns that you have, last week when you and I were discussing. And I did mention to you that you would be invited to Lagos in another 2 months to commission the largest rice mill in the country as well. But it's not just that we are commissioning a rice mill, it's that the fertilizer and urea that is coming out of the Dangote Fertilizer Plant here, will be utilised by the farmers that you are always concerned about, by the youth that you want us to give employment to and they will be utilising the fertilizer and they will be utilising the rice mill that we will be commissioning very very soon.
Mr President, you also mentioned to me, while we were on our way here, that, "Oh my God! How was he able to do it? How was Mr. . .Alhaji Aliko Dangote able to do this feat"? And I said to you that it is the power, the resilience, the Nigerian in him that kept on driving him on and that I know that several times he had wanted to stop and that something in him continued to tell him to trudge on. It's the audacity of the size of this project is amazing, even when you look at it high above, from the helicopter. And he's here. We want to acknowledge and we want to thank him so very much.
But the story of Dangote Fertilizer and Refinery will be incomplete if we don't put the history into proper perspective.
The idea around having a free zone in the Ibeju Lekki area was conceived by our leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and I was with him in 2003/2004 when we took a trip to China and we were trying to concieve a free zone. And today here, this free zone is not only home to the largest fertilizer plant in Africa, but will certainly be home to the largest refinery, the single train refinery in the entire world, come later this year.
And so we are indeed so very excited that our host community continues to remain home to all of these big projects. We're indeed excited that peace, safety and security in this part of the country continues to remain something that is critical to you and it is something that is also critical to us as a government.
And so, on behalf of the community, the very very large community of Ibeju Lekki, the millions of direct and indirect jobs that this complex will be providing, I want to thank Alhaji Aliko Dangote. He could have made a different choice about his wealth. He could have made a different decision about what God has given to him, but he took the audacity and said that this is what I want to be remembered for.
For me it's about how do we replicate several Aliko Dangote in our midst. How do we ensure that indeed we can put other Aliko Dangotes in other parts of this country and they can indeed domesticate all of these great initiatives for you.
Alhaji Aliko, you do not need any further introduction. You are a son of the soil. You are an indigene of Ibeju Lekki and there's nothing. . .because Mr President told me that I should hold you. I said you ain't going anywhere. You are here with us and the community is happy to have you.
So the story is not about him today. It's about all of us. How many others do we want to build? Lagos is home and is ready. Lagos is home and is ready. We have sufficient land for you. Don't think that it's only Kebbi and Kaduna and Niger that has land, we have sufficient land for you, to absorb all of your other investments that you might be thinking about.
And finally, it's truly, really to thank all of you. Asiwaju to thank you for the vision, to say that indeed, what this whole neighbourhood is about. . .it's about ensuring that we can double and we can quadruple the GDP of our country. That we can provide jobs and opportunities for the teeming youths that we have and we can give them the hope that Mr President continues to talk about.
Mr President, I want to thank you again for creating the time to be here today. We will be inviting you again in another 2 months to come and commission the very first again in our community. And finally, again to thank you for giving us your Executive Order 7 on the road that we will be doing. The major road out of this place, Alhaji forgot to mention it, because we have been working on this road for a long time and you've given us the approval for it. And so we will be doing the road here and the State Government also will be asking you to come and commission the 18.7 kilometre, the 6 lane rigid pavement road that we have on the other side, such that the experience that we are having in Apapa will certainly not be the type of experience that we will be having here.
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