Since she took over the reins of leadership at PEBEC early in the year, Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu has made a bold statement of creating a new chapter by creating a predictable, transparent, and business-friendly regulatory environment, FLORENCE ALLOR writes.
On January 20, 2025, Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu was appointed as the Director-General of Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, signalling a fresh wave of hope and expectation for reforms in Nigeria’s business landscape. Her predecessor, Jumoke Oduwole, became Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment shortly after, creating the vacancy that Audu now fills.
Audu arrived with more than just credentials — she offers a rare confluence of technology acumen, investment savvy, and philanthropic grounding. With a background in software engineering and a business-management degree from a UK university, she brings global exposure and technical depth to a role whose success depends on institutional reform and modernisation.
Prior to her PEBEC appointment, she served as Technical Adviser on ¬Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, to the President, conceptualising and leading the “Invest in Nigeria” campaign and coordinating the Existing Foreign Direct Investors Roundtable Forum. This prior exposure arguably positioned her as a natural fit to steer PEBEC’s mission of improving Nigeria’s business climate and attracting foreign capital.
Unlike many successors who take months to settle in, Princess Audu “hit the ground running,” triggering immediate policy action. Within weeks of assuming office, she unveiled a new regulatory framework – the Regulatory Impact Analysis, RIA, Framework – intended to standardise regulatory review across all federal agencies.
This RIA framework, scheduled to take effect in March 2025, introduces a rigorous 11-question test for any proposed regulation, ensuring that new policies are evaluated for potential unintended consequences before they are promulgated. The aim: to create a predictable, transparent, and business-friendly regulatory environment that reduces compliance burdens and fosters investor confidence.
Her strategy speaks to a deeper belief: that real change must come from executing reforms, not just drafting them. At a retreat for top ministries and agencies, held under the aegis of PEBEC, efforts were made to foster enhanced inter-agency synergy, eradicate duplication, and leverage technology for faster, more transparent service delivery.
Under Audu’s watch, PEBEC has sought to anchor reforms not solely in rhetoric but in tangible operational improvements across key sectors.
One such milestone was the formation of the Ports and Customs Efficiency Committee, PCEC, a multi-stakeholder task force composed of regulators, terminal operators, freight forwarders and shipping firms, aimed at streamlining activities at Nigeria’s seaports. According to Audu, port inefficiencies cost Nigeria jobs, revenue, and investment, and PCEC is part of a strategic push to halt that drain.
Another significant development came in 2025: PEBEC launched a nationwide tour of reforms, scheduled from late June through mid-July. The tour, covering all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, involves technical sessions and town-hall meetings, designed to engage stakeholders directly, gather feedback, and foster the adoption of business-enabling reforms at state level.
Through the tour, the vision is to ensure that reforms are not Lagos-centric but embedded in the wider Nigerian economy — giving SMEs, regional businesses and local entrepreneurs a chance to thrive.
Under Audu’s leadership, PEBEC has emphasised not only regulatory reform but also swift service delivery — an area that often frustrates businesses and investors. A notable example: the agency commended the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, for clearing a nationwide backlog in driver-licence production, after the Corps upgraded to a contactless biometric-capture system, producing up to 15,000 licences daily, with permanent licences issued in as little as 48 hours.
PEBEC’s commendation came after a formal communication on November 7, 205 prompted FRSC to undertake a full internal review and restore system functionality. For Audu and PEBEC, this represents an affirmation of what is possible when regulatory oversight and accountable execution converge.
Such improvements feed directly into investor confidence – reducing friction for both local entrepreneurs and foreign investors seeking to enter or expand operations in Nigeria. In doing so, PEBEC under Audu has quietly shifted from being a regulator to a catalyst for tangible, real-world change.
On December 4, 2025, PEBEC under the direction of Princess Audu, released the 2025 Subnational Ease of Doing Business Report. The ranking, built on 36 states plus the Federal Capital Territory, scores states across 16 indicators and 36 sub-metrics including electricity reliability, taxation transparency, land administration, logistics efficiency, investor support, and commercial justice delivery.
Lagos once again took the lead with a score of 85.6 per cent. States such as Kaduna (65.1 per cent), Oyo, FCT, and Ogun followed in second to fifth positions; Enugu, Plateau, Ekiti, Kano and Nasarawa completed the top ten.
In its commentary, PEBEC stated that the ranking offers more than a performance metric — it represents a “reform compliance audit”, intended to influence eligibility for federal incentives, global investment engagement, and future development financing.
Audu has described the report as evidence that some states are finally transitioning from policy rhetoric into actual implementation through the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms, SABER, a landmark programme designed to accelerate sub-national competitiveness.
Despite the progress, the 2025 report issued a sober warning: many states still lack credible investor-aftercare systems, stable industrial power supplies, functional MSME financing channels, and dependable interstate trade frameworks. The message is clear: the journey to a truly enabling business environment is far from complete.
Nonetheless, under Princess Audu’s leadership, PEBEC appears determined to shift focus from policy design to policy execution. Her emphasis on collaboration among ministries, agencies and private sector stakeholders; along with continued engagement across all levels of government is a promising sign.
For a country burdened by administrative inefficiencies, regulatory opacity, and post-investment service gaps, this renewed push for institutional reform and delivery could mark a turning point.
In less than a year since her appointment, Princess Zahrah Mustapha Audu has transformed the narrative around PEBEC — from a think-tank regulatory body into a dynamic engine of business reform. Through the introduction of the RIA framework, operational oversight, landmark committees like PCEC, nationwide stakeholder engagement, and concrete state-by-state assessments — she has laid the groundwork for a more transparent, efficient, and investor-friendly Nigeria.
There remain chasms to cross: systemic infrastructural deficits, inconsistent state-level reforms, and fragile investor-support structures. Yet, with every policy anchored in execution, every guideline backed by implementation, and every measure benchmarked by performance, Audu’s tenure is shaping up to be one defined not by rhetoric, but by giant strides. She is no doubt, creating a new chapter for Nigeria’s business landscape at PEBEC.
