Good People, after the piece which took our national challenge home, after I explained, using Aliko Dangote, on how Nigerians are getting poorer, one of our Senators responded with a question, “How Can Nigeria Stabilize the Naira?” I was in the National Assembly late last year and made my points. I have sent the slides to the Distinguished Senator. Of course no one is saying that there is a magic wand to fix Nigeria’s problems.
Yet, we all agree that we cannot get to the mountaintop overnight, as the effects of today are largely related to the negligence of many years ago. And fixing Nigeria would mean freezing those negligence elements.The universities are still on strike! Typically, after long strikes, virus or no virus, most students do not return, and Nigeria does not seem to care on the economic impacts of these strikes.
Nigeria will not rise solely from Abuja but from what Kano, Lagos, Onitsha and other cities can do with the help from Abuja. I will send a formal Brief to the Senator but I did also send this piece I wrote in Harvard Business Review on African development and the case study of China. There is abundance in Nigeria; we need to unlock it. Then, Naira will feel good.
As robotics and AI advance, most countries will keep their production processes at home, eliminating the need for cheaper labor abroad. In this redesign, Africa’s competitor is not China; robots and AI are the real competitors. Africa can no longer depend on global manufacturing to become industrialized, nor can it simply mimic China’s policies. But if Africa educates its citizens, integrates effectively on trade and currency, and improves intra-African trade, its industries can compete at least to serve its local markets. Where that happens, Africa can attain industrialization faster by scaling indigenous innovations and utilizing AI as enablers.
The Vice President’s Ease of Doing Business and Aliko Dangote’s Wealth
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What are we willing to do?
For a start, can we redirect the N52B they are still squabbling on who has constitutional mandate to share/squander it? Let’s pour the whole of it on start-ups with scalable potential, those who need a million dollars or more to take off, not the usual 5 or 10 million naira business. We need to learn to make big bets on our people, and go ahead supporting them to succeed; no better way to guarantee growth than that. Nobody’s life depends on those N20k we want to share, we are not in a position to be sharing free money for consumption right now.
Again, what sacrifices are we willing to make? The senator asking you can manage 25% of his total income from the government, while we channel the remaining 75% from each of them to productive ventures, including reforms that can put us on the growth trajectory.
Then we need a competent team that breathes Nigeria through and through, people make things happen, and if we allow sound minds to make suggestions and implement same, we will notice changes within 12 months.
This is not the time for plenty talks, we simply need to ask questions, then know what other alternatives out there. There are plenty questions to ask, to allow us know if Nigeria is bewitched.
Exactly all these free money should be spent on start up that will grow to absorb the unemployed we need to invest in the economy Let the govt urgently implement the orosanye panel report on merging and scrapping MBA and let us invest on education at the primary and secondary level and let the local govt be truly be autonomous and let them be able to generate thier revenue in addition to what the federal give