When Engineer Abdullahi A. Sule took the oath of office as Governor of Nasarawa State on May 29, 2019, he inherited an agrarian state rich in potential but starved of the institutional machinery needed to translate its natural endowments into economic prosperity. Six years later, the landscape has shifted dramatically.
Through the Nasarawa State Investment and Development Agency (NASIDA) and the strategic blueprint of the Nasarawa Economic Development Strategy (NEDS), the Sule administration has orchestrated an investment coup that has seen over $3 billion in investment commitments flow into the state, with foreign direct investment (FDI) dominating the portfolio.
In 2024 alone, NASIDA recorded $1.23 billion (₦1.8 trillion) in total investment inflows, with 458 million in actualized FDI representing 98.12% of all realized investments that year.
The foundation of this economic renaissance rests on two pillars: the Nasarawa Economic Development Strategy (NEDS) 2019-2023 and the institutional muscle of NASIDA. NEDS was conceived as a departure from the traditional, document-heavy development planning that had characterized previous administrations. It identified five “Game Changers” which include: Employment and Wealth Creation, Accelerated Industrialization, Infrastructure Development, Human Capital Development, and Urban Renewal, supported by four reform areas including civil service reform, efficient tax administration, and robust economic management.
“NEDS departs from previous traditional planning experience of states in Nigeria in that it is driven by strong political will, recognizes fiscal constraints up front, includes a pragmatic implementation mechanism and engages citizens on the change that Nasarawa truly needs,” the strategy document itself declares.
To execute this vision, the administration established NASIDA through the NASIDA Law of 2020, creating what is essentially a “one-stop shop” for investment promotion and facilitation. Unlike previous ad-hoc approaches, NASIDA was designed with institutional memory, continuity, and private sector participation embedded in its DNA. The agency operates an Infrastructure Fund where 5% of the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) accrues monthly, a first-of-its-kind mechanism to de-risk infrastructure projects and improve their bankability.
In 2024, the $767 million in announced investments and $466 million in actualized investments demonstrated a healthy conversion rate from intent to implementation.
The sectoral distribution embarked upon by Governor Sule reveals a deliberate diversification strategy. Mining and manufacturing dominated actualized investments in 2024, attracting $251 million and $200 million respectively . The petroleum sector topped announced investments with $500 million, followed by power ($200 million), agriculture ($44 million), and real estate ($11 million).
Similarly, the geographic spread is equally telling. While Nasarawa Local Government Area attracted the lion’s share ($450 million or 96.4% of actualized investments) largely due to the Juiling Lithium Industry Limited’s $250 million processing plant, investments also flowed to Karu ($7.7 million), Doma ($7 million), and Lafia ($2.6 million) . This distribution suggests the beginning of a multi-polar economic geography rather than concentrated development in the state capital.
Perhaps no single project better encapsulates the Sule administration’s investment drive than the emergence of Nasarawa as Nigeria’s lithium capital. The state has attracted over $800 million in solid minerals investments alone, according to Federal Minister of Solid Minerals Development Dele Alake.
At the center of this transformation is Juiling Lithium Industry Limited, a global lithium giant constructing a 4-million-ton annual capacity lithium processing plant; the largest of its kind in Africa. When President Bola Tinubu visited the state in June 2025, he witnessed the groundbreaking of a $400 million rare earth minerals and critical metals plant that promises to create over 10,000 jobs upon completion.
“This will position Nasarawa as a high-technology production hub,” Governor Sule declared at the groundbreaking, reflecting the essence of his administration’s vision of moving beyond raw material extraction to value-added processing.
The lithium rush across the globe for clean energy has attracted a constellation of other players to Nasarawa State like Khalif Mining’s lithium and rubidium processing plant ($2 million), Asgard Mineral Processing Limited ($1.5 million), and Uke Gold’s mining operations ($10 million). Contrary to what obtains when state governments try to attract investments, these are not speculative ventures; they represent a fundamental restructuring of Nasarawa state’s economic base from subsistence agriculture and artisanal mining to industrial-scale mineral processing.
However, while solid minerals grab the headlines, the Sule administration’s investment portfolio reveals sophisticated sectoral diversification. The Future Granary Project has committed $200 million to agricultural value chains. Husk Power Systems has invested $7 million in off-grid energy solutions. The Nasarawa Technology Village, with phases attracting $2.1 million and $1.25 million respectively, signals an attempt to seed a technology ecosystem.
Perhaps most significantly, Nasarawa state has attracted major energy investments that address its infrastructure deficit. The Infinitum Energy Group of the USA has bid to invest $180 million in a 25-30 MW Waste-to-Energy and Solar Renewable Power project.
These investments align with NEDS’s strategic priority of infrastructure development, recognizing that without power and transport, no industrialization is possible. The Governor Sule’s establishment of the Nasarawa State Electricity Regulatory Commission in 202, further demonstrates institutional follow-through on energy sector reform.
Governor Sule has consistently emphasized that the attraction of investments is “directly linked to peace and harmonious co-existence of the populace”. In a region plagued by security challenges, Nasarawa has maintained relative stability through what the NASIDA CEO, Barr. Ibrahim Abdullahi, describes as an “inclusive approach to solving security situations,” working with community leaders, traditional institutions, and civil society.
Furthermore, the institutional reforms embedded in NEDS and operationalized through NASIDA have also attacked the bureaucratic bottlenecks that traditionally deter investment. The agency has provided integrated support services, streamlining business registration, and has established a one-stop investment office in Lafia and Karu.
The ultimate measure of investment is its impact on human welfare. In 2024 alone, NASIDA estimates that actualized investments created 3,740 jobs across the state . These range from high-skill positions in lithium processing and power systems to construction jobs and service sector employment.
“When these investors come, they need people, they need jobs, they need human resource to be able to make these investments happen,” explains Ibrahim Abdullahi, NASIDA’s Chief Executive. “Government generates revenue from the relevant taxes, companies employ our people, and our people get gainfully employed, it helps us break the circle of poverty in our local communities”.
This “shared prosperity” model represents the philosophical core of the Sule administration’s approach. It is a departure from the rent-seeking extraction models that have plagued resource-rich Nigerian states, aiming instead at a catalytic, multiplicative impact on the local economy.
As the Sule administration enters its final stretch, the focus has shifted to consolidation. The 2026 budget, tagged the “Budget of Strategic Consolidation,” allocates ₦316.3 billion (58.88%) to capital expenditure, with infrastructure receiving the largest sectoral allocation at ₦157.8 billion (30.49%) . This fiscal architecture supports the completion of ongoing projects rather than mere ribbon-cutting.
The Nasarawa experiment shows that with strategic clarity, institutional innovation, and political will, even states without Lagos’s commercial dominance or Rivers’s oil wealth can attract significant FDI. The combination of NEDS as a strategic compass and NASIDA as an implementation engine provides a replicable model for sub-national economic development.
Nasarawa State is gradually shedding its image as Abuja’s sleepy backyard. It is becoming, in Governor Sule’s words “one of Nigeria’s top three most competitive states”; a transformation wrought not by oil windfalls but by deliberate, systematic investment promotion anchored on a clear economic strategy.
