 I bring you the very warm greetings of His Excellency President Mohammad Kowari, who as you know is particularly proud of the impact and contributions of MSMEs in the economy. And I'm particularly delighted to have yet another opportunity to see some of our young and innovative entrepreneurs here in this hall today. Since its inauguration in 2018, the National MSME Awards has grown in leaps and bounds. It has become a prominent feature in the annual event calendar of the MSME community in Nigeria, attracting thousands of prospective business owners, established entrepreneurs, regulators and financiers. The award applications have actually jumped from 500 applications in 2018 to over 17,000 entries this year. Clearly the interest shown in the awards by Nigerian entrepreneurs has simply been tremendous. In the past years, winners in the different categories have gone home with various prizes that have impacted their businesses and profiles, cash prizes, cars, and of course local and international media attention. The reward for the awards has also increased from an initial humble beginning of one star prize, which was a car in 2018 for the MSME of the year award, and took 10 cars in all categories this year. So this year every category goes home with a prize, or going home with a prize. This is to underscore the significant improvements that have been made between the, that has been established between the private sector and the federal government over the years. The awards have also inspired many young entrepreneurs to greatness, and some of the stories and some of them you will read are simply incredible. Let me seize this opportunity to mention and congratulate again this year's winners, and as has been announced, I will be privileged to take a photograph with them on their spouses immediately after the speech. The first is the glory production limited from Delta, winner of the award for excellence in agriculture, nature's organic secret from Niger State, who won the Navdax Medan Award for excellence in beauty and cosmetics. Then there's a Benny Prince from Oyostate, who is the winner of the NEBC Award for excellence in the creative arts, and Farmaparel, or Farmcaraparel from Lagosville, who takes home the FIRS Award for excellence in fashion and style. Then we have Tanko Furniture from Sokoto State, who wins the award for the ITF Excellence in Furniture and Woodwork, and then James Moff's Enterprises from Plateau State, who won the RMRDC, that's the Raw Materials Corporation and DBM Award in Leatherwoods. The next empire for MIMO State, winner of the Nexem Bank MSME Clinic Participant of the Year Award. These MSMEs tell the story of our country's great economic future. We are set to manufacture our own vehicles, as we've seen, clean energy trucks and cars, and we're on course to manufacturing our own weapons, our own armored mobile platforms and aircrafts. We have everything that it takes. But I believe that the MSMEs, especially in technology and manufacturing, especially in the clean energy or green economy, deserve special mention. I'm convinced that this sector will be crucial in global industrial development in the coming years, and will leap throughout Nigeria to economic prosperity. This evening we've seen outstanding innovators from that sector. Let me mention three that seem to me to have set or will define, in my view, the future in terms of clean energy, automobiles, and precision engineering. The first is Think Bikes Limited, the winner of the BOI Award for Excellence in Manufacturing, founded by Mr. Tololo Queo Olukotu, would produce the solar and battery-run bikes that can go up to 50 kilometers on a single charge. The second is Phoenix Renewables Limited, the winner of the MTDA Award in Innovation, founded by Mustafa Abu Bakr Gajibu. The company designs and builds electric and solar-powered cars, tricycles and also other vehicles and engine parts as well. The vehicles have now been deployed for public transportation in the Madukuri Metropolis in Bono State. By April, they had actually conveyed over 21,000 passengers all around Bono State. And I've had the singular pleasure of driving one of those cars, one of those electric cars, when I went to the Bono MSM Leclerc. So I actually drove it myself, tested it, and I see that it's a very, very good car indeed. Now there's also the third, and this is the Clintonel Advanced Engineering Center, the Access Bank MSME of the Year Award winner. Founded by Mr. Tololo Queo Olukotu, the company builds high-precision parts, molds for medical equipment, and also for engine parts, for auto-engine parts. So these companies, I mean, look at the Clintonel company for instance, these are the companies that will build the molds for spare parts for cars, their building molds for spare parts for engines, for manufacturing plants, etc. Now this is the building block for a true industrial revolution in Nigeria, and many of these companies have already demonstrated to us that we have everything that it takes for a major industrial revolution, especially also in the clean energy space. I must also congratulate the governor of Edo, Emo, Ogu, and Bono States, who picked up outstanding awards in the various categories in the MSME space. It is our sincere hope that this will motivate others to achieve even greater exploits in our quest to create better business policies and of course better products and a better environment for MSMEs to thrive. We've decided to make the MSME Awards a regular annual celebration of excellence and innovation in the sector and an enduring national event. The idea is to draw more prospects in the MSME sector while we continue to reward the high achievers who serve as our models. As you may be aware, all the finalists typically get as part of their prize packages two weeks of media attention to showcase and market their products. I'm glad to note that a lot of effort went into ensuring that this year's awards, which is the fifth edition, has recorded much improvement on past productions. For all of the great successes that the MSME clinic has recorded, especially in the past three years, I think we must commend and again congratulate the 100th Minister of State for Industry Trade and Investment, Ambassador Omari Amkatagou, and her team, and of course Mr MSME himself, Tola Johnson, special assistant to the president of MSMEs. Our government believes that the role of government is to make it easier for businesses to run efficiently. This is why we set up five MSME production facilities under our shared facilities initiative. In Benwell State, for instance, we established a 200,000-ton capacity yam storage facility for smallholder farms in the Zaki BM yam market, while in Lagos State, a modern fashion hub has been set up in Ikega. The facility for Nambra State is a state-of-the-art leatherworks facility at Obonike Leather Cluster. That has been completed and was commissioned in 2021. The Emo State Fashion Cluster was commissioned also in 2021, and the Edo State Furniture Cluster was commissioned in December 2021. Other facilities and other such projects will be commissioned soon. Some of them include the Caduna State Tomato Paste Production Hub and the Obon State Refurbished Adiré Market. Other facilities are those that will be in Gombe, in Bauchi, in Kebe, in Eboi, in Delta, in Nassarawa, in Iqiti, in Abia, and also in Kano State. Permit me also to thank all the 30 governors who have so far hosted MSME clinics in their states, and they supported the building of one-stop shops for MSMEs, and also provided suitable buildings for the shared facilities for MSMEs. I must also thank our partner ministries, departments, and agencies for your immense support I met with the heads of agencies earlier this week, and I must especially thank AXSBAN PLC, because they've always been a dependable partner for all of our MSME programs. We must commend the team responsible for putting together this amazing edition of the fifth edition of the National MSME Award Ceremony, but before I conclude, let me digress briefly to recognize a person, and I hope he's here, who may be rightly described as the originator of the idea of the MSME clinics. Here's Ambassador Adi Emi Dipu'olu, the Special Advisor for the President on Economic Matters. Ambassador Adi Emi Dipu'olu came to me in 2018 with Mr. Tola Johnson and proposed the idea of a clinic. I think Tola had initially thought about an MSME week, but it was Ambassador Adi Emi Dipu'olu who decided that this should be a clinic, which will be like a model mobile medical clinic for MSMEs, where we'll take all the regulators and development finance banks from state to state, showing them off to the MSMEs and letting the MSMEs actually see them, talk to them, tell them their problems, and hopefully get those problems resolved on the spot. So all of these ideas, a lot of these ideas were developed by this gentleman, Ambassador Adi Emi Dipu'olu. I hope he's here. Somewhere if he is, could he rise for recognition? He's not here. Okay. Well, let us just, I hope we can just give him a round of applause, and finally to thank everyone who has participated so actively in all of our efforts so far. And I must, in closing, salute the innovation and resilience of young Nigerians. It is your relentless drive, your full, all of your participation, your energy, your creativity. That is the guarantee that our nation will prosper and that will provide the jobs and opportunities for the millions of young Nigerians who come into the job market every year. We are immensely, immensely proud of all of you. And to everyone here today, thank you very much for coming, and thank you also for listening. God bless you all. Thank you.