First and foremost, all our socio-economic woes can be narrowed down to one problem: we are not productive enough. Even with the greatest will on earth, there is no way a gross domestic product of about $450 billion and an annual budget of $30 billion can cater to the needs of 200 million people.
It is as a result of having too many people chasing after limited resources that we have all our other problems, such as corruption, inflation, tribalism, religious intolerance, kidnapping, banditry, and insecurity. As things stand, even if we had a joint presidency of Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed running the country, Nigeria would not be at ease with herself.
Nigeria’s biggest enemy, which Lucifer must have sent to destroy us, is the federal allocation formula. It has perpetuated our dependence on one primary commodity for our survival, stifled the ability of our states to become viable, and ensured we do not exploit the numerous opportunities that prevail in our economy. This federal allocation formula has to go today!
No state in Nigeria is a barren desert. Every single one of our 36 states is capable of producing enough to sustain itself and generate a surplus for investment in capital projects. Our governors, however, appear afraid of the unknown and do not want to leave their comfort zones. What, for instance, prevents a Nigerian governor from coming to the City of London to raise $10 billion to invest in a hydro-electric power plant in his state?
Nigeria has a 36-cylinder economy, but at the moment, only one of them is working, and that arrangement is not viable or sustainable. Currently, only Lagos State can survive without crude oil receipts. We need to bring the remaining 35 states up to the level of Lagos State.
Annually, Nigeria only attracts a paltry $4 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI), of which 90% goes to Lagos State. This makes it clear that the private sector cannot be relied upon to take Nigeria to the promised land, as it is not prepared to put its money where its mouth is. All those mercantilist economists spouting Thatcherite theories about how private capital will deliver a glorious future for mankind can see that their theories do not live up to scrutiny.
Nigeria desperately needs her 36 federating units to be major economic players if she is to develop. Across the spectrum, our states need to be active participants in the economy in the form of joint ventures with the private sector. Every governor needs to set about entering into public-private partnership arrangements in their states to fill all the voids in our economy. There are too many areas where nothing is happening simply because there are no structures in place.
Food processing, agriculture, power generation, solid mineral processing, railway networks, tourism, clean energy, etc., are sectors where we simply do not have enough private sector investors, and the state is not operational either. Nature abhors a vacuum, so in the meantime, the rot just steps in. Nigeria desperately needs state-owned corporations.
All those Harvard-trained economists who came up with the misguided slogan “the government has no business in business” did not know what they were talking about. They are reading out of textbooks written for 22nd-century advanced economies, not developing nations like Nigeria. Yes, state capitalism has failed woefully in Nigeria, but that does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just to make the point, the following companies are all wholly state-owned and thriving: Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, and Ghana Cocoa Board.
Nigerians love certificates, but we are an extremely intellectually lazy people. Virtually no state government in Nigeria has standing think tanks or policy units, so it is no surprise that governors assume office with absolutely no action plan whatsoever. I remember John Redwood used to be the head of Margaret Thatcher’s Number 10 Policy Unit. We need such structures in place if we want to see thinking in government circles.
