The Management of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) has described the recent United States of America’s South Carolina and Georgia Commendation Award conferred on its Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi, as a global recognition of his effort at repositioning the country’s Free Trade Zones Scheme in the last two years of his appointment to lead the Authority.

The Management believed that Dr. Ogunyemi’s appointment to drive the scheme to profitability was already yielding the desired results, hence the acknowledgement.

The commendation, presented by Rep. Rosalyn Henderson-Myers (South Carolina) and Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler (Georgia), was based on Dr. Ogunyemi’s excellent track record of Transparency, Probity, and Due Process in the management of resources and applying Corporate Governance since his assumption of office.

The award was facilitated by the Africa Leadership Organisation, publisher of the Africa Leadership Magazine UK, and presented at the 2025 Africa Leadership Organisation UK award ceremony held on June 9th and 10th at the House of Lords in London.

Beyond the realm of medicine, Dr. Ogunyemi continued to display unwavering excellent leadership in the fiercely competitive global space for Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) into the country’s Special Economic Zones.

Expectedly, the highly professional delivery of his mandate, which is intertwined with the Renewed Hope Agenda mantra of the administration of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu GCFR, was enabled by his academic and competencies in Global Diplomacy, Business Administration, and Political Economy.

Dr. Ogunyemi’s appointment to lead the Authority has been lauded as one of the president’s masterstrokes and a testament to his precision in human resource recruitment over time. Dr. Ogunyemi has, in his customary humility, not failed to recognise the president’s gesture at all the international platforms he attended to speak on the country’s strategic evolution of the Special Economic Zones Scheme.

Some of these platforms included the annual conferences of the World Free Zones Organisation (WFZO) in Dubai, the Africa Economic Zones Organisation (AEZO) in Nairobi, and the International Conference on Financing Investment and Trade in Africa in Tunis.

He was elected to the Board of the World Trade Zones Organisation (WTZO) and the Steering Committee of the Africa Economic Zones Organisation (AEZO) in Dubai and Nairobi within this short period.

Dr. Ogunyemi’s unflinching commitment to the task at hand has continued to build significant traffic of world-class enterprises into the free trade zones.