Barrister Dele Oye, is the President -Elect, Abuja Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ABUCCIMA). In this interview with Franklin Alli, he talks passionately about his vision for the chamber, among other issues.

How do you see the chambers of commerce movement in Nigeria?

As you are probably aware, the chambers of commerce movement in Nigeria is currently structured in three ways. First we have the country bilateral or multilateral chamber movements, examples of which are the Nigeria-British Chamber of Commerce, Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce and so on. These chambers focus essentially solely on trade and commerce between Nigeria and the respective countries where such bilateral or multilateral relationships exists as their name indicates. It is usually made up of a group of businesses focused solely on the countries as described from their names. The second are the Chambers of Commerce organized on city or state basis, examples of which are the Abuja Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ABUCCIMA), Aba Chamber of Commerce, Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce etc.

These chambers of commerce unlike the first group covers various business relationships with diverse countries, but with focus on encouraging and attracting trade, commerce and foreign direct investment to the state, city and/or territory which the chamber are based. Most of the chambers in this category are registered with corporate personality. The third group is the National Association of Chambers of Commerce in Nigeria (NACCIMA) which is the umbrella body of all Chambers of Commerce in Nigeria, all State, City or Territory Chambers of Commerce are affiliated to NACCIMA, if the State or City chambers meet the stringent conditions of registration with NACCIMA. NACCIMA has the sole power to grant the right to organize trade fairs in any part of Nigeria under a delegated power from the Federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Within NACCIMA, chambers are also categorized on grades; and I am happy to say that Abuja Chamber of Commerce is one of the very few chambers in the highest category (Category A) of NACCIMA, by virtue of which every president of any category A chamber is designated Second Deputy President Ex-Officio of NACCIMA. By and large, chambers of commerce movement in Nigeria is well organized and structured to coordinate development of business in Nigeria, the Chambers are working very hard to ensure that most government policies are motivated by the true needs of our people and not, from mere immediate political considerations.

How has Abuja Chamber of Commerce been impacting on businesses in the FCT?

The Abuja chamber of commerce was established in 1986 to help the development of commerce and industries within Abuja. The Chamber has done very well in working closely with Government in removing the tag of civil service town to a commercial federal capitalcity, some of the ways the Chamber has been using in encouraging these development include the annual Abuja national trade fairs (now Abuja international trade fairs), solo and sectoral trade exhibitions, trade missions abroad, advise on government policy at conception and implementation, seminars, training programmes, investment in the FCT by our members; some of which control the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy (and indeed Abuja) in their various sectors, for example ; Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, Oceanic Bank International Plc, Transcorp Hilton etc. The Chamber will continue to work with the FCT administration as voice of the organized private sector to help the FCT continue to deliver qualitative governance to the people of Abuja.

Are you into any partnerships with offshore Chambers of Commerce?

There are various levels of multilateral and bilateral relationships between the various Chambers of commerce of some countries with ABUCCIMA, indeed you cannot organize any serious trade mission to any country without some form of understanding with the Chamber of commerce of that country.While nurturing existing relationships, we intend to expand our current relationship to include more Chambers of Commerce all over the world and indeed forge very close working relationship with other Nigerian chambers of commerce. We are currently working with Kano Chamber of Commerce on the development of a market within the FCT, such joint venture efforts will continue under my tenure as president of ABUCCIMA. As part of building relationships with the Asian countries, we organized three trade missions to India, China and Hong Kong in 2008; we intend to organize more in 2009.

What has the Chamber been doing towards making Abuja a commercial city?

Like I said earlier, Abuja has changed from a civil service city to a modern city with the best infrastructure to support business, which has led to the development of some of the best hotels within Nigeria, a substantial number of bank branches second only to Lagos, industries, real estate development, large retail businesses etc, I wish to say that there is room for improvement and a more organized even development.

What changes would you bring to bear on ABUCCIMA?

I intend to strengthen the Chamber by providing more quality personnel to enhance its effectiveness to generate the right quality of materials to support members' business and be more articulate to provide government with information on policies. We also intend to begin full development of our twenty five hectares trade fair complex land into a major conference and tourism centre ,that will include shopping malls, hotels, trade fair exhibition hall, conference facilities, amusement park etc. We intend to continue and indeed improve on our current activities of organizing trade fairs, trade missions, seminars etc. I am humbled with the confidence reposed in me by my colleagues in the Chamber in electing me as their President. Apart from my experiences gathered over the years as a member of the chamber, my election to various positions within the chamber hierarchy has indeed prepared me for the current position. Also by training as a lawyer, part of our training involves ability to lead, I have also gained a lot of experiences from my previous position as president of Obafemi Awolowo University Alumni Association, member of the governing council of the University between year 2000-2004. All these and indeed my residency within the FCT since 1989 have prepared me for this responsibility. While I intend to work closely with the Executive committee, council, board of governors and members of the Chamber, my election as President does not mean I will do the work alone with my ideas alone, but rather based on the collective decision, inputs, advise and support of the entire membership of the Chamber, all these efforts will be used to run the Chamber. With specific reference to your question, I say we are all prepared to give the Chamber and the people of Abuja our best.

We heard that the Chamber recently went on a trade mission to Canada

Yes, our recent trade mission to Toronto, Canada was an eye opener. We observed the steady, orderly and remarkable development of Canada as a model we need to be look closely, for us to adopt some of their best practices without repeating their mistakes. Firstly Canada is a country where rules are enforced strictly, their innovative power generation through turbines needs to study and possibly copied here, we intend in the next few weeks to provide detailed information on our visit to relevant agencies of government for possible consideration. By and large we were exposed to several business opportunities, the government of Canada through the Alberta Province will be coming on a trade visit to Nigeria and Ghana in February 2009. We observed in Canada the very high quality of very successful Nigerian professionals and business men and women who are true ambassadors of this country. The Nigerian Ambassador; Professor Iyorwuese Hayes and the entire Embassy staff worked very hard to encourage partnerships between our delegation and the Canadian business men.

How long have you been organising the annual Abuja international trade fairs ?

The Abuja international trade fairs started as a local fair in partnership with some states in the middle belt several years back. We commenced our solo fairs thereafter in 1998 and in May 2006 organized our first international trade fair. Since the Chamber commenced its international trade fair, the level of success has been on the increase, to the extent that in our last trade fair in May 2008, all the exhibition spaces were sold out one month before the fair. While the fairs have been hugely successful, we intend to increase sectoral participation in the areas of local inventions by encouraging our various research institutes to celebrate their success during such fairs , this will give a forum where we as a chamber, can link the industry with the academic community. We also intend to raise the quality of foreign participation by encouraging more foreign companies to participate in the May 2009 edition. We believe with better organization, improved security and encouragement of government to give more incentives to businesses who decide to set up within the FCT, these objectives can easily be achieved.

What would your Chamber be telling government to do in the face of crashing crude oil price/ Naira depreciation?

There is no question about the fact that 2009 holds a lot of challenges. The economic recession blowing across the world is no fiction. The proponents of free markets and countries that can be described the proprietors of capitalism have taken the socialist approach to save their economies. Trillions of dollars have been announced by governments in Europe and the America as funds to help bailout ailing companies and institutions whose failure portend serious risk to their economy. For us in Nigeria our case is very intricate. Our economy depends mainly on crude oil and this is the commodity that has been seriously hit by the global economic melt down, like it has come to be known. So government leaders must adopt very strict fiscal measures and they must be very responsible in spending state resources. The issue of corruption, which is the biggest drain to the country's resources, must be tackled with sincerity so that funds that are frittered away through that means would be retained and used to improve the lives of the people.