I hope President Tinubu leaves China with a roadmap that involves Nigeria never falling behind developing nations in the same developmental bracket as us with a masterplan that looks something like this

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria will boost generated electricity supply from the current 7,000MW to match South Africa’s 50,000MW

[2] His government will increase the kilometres of tarred roads in Nigeria from the current 200,000km to match South Africa’s 750,000km

[3] His government will increase the length of Nigeria’s railway network from the current 4,000km to match Pakistan’s 8,000km

[4] Nigeria will increase our literacy rate from the current 60% to match Brazil’s 91.7%

[5] His government will boost Nigeria’s steel production from the current zero level to match Egypt’s output of 7m tonnes

[6] This government will increase sugar production from the current 37,500 tonnes to the 762,000 tonnes produced by Sudan annually

[7] Nigeria will increase her rice production from the current 5,000 tonnes to match Thailand’s 20,000 tonnes per annum

[8] This government will boost palm oil production from the current 1m tonnes to match Malaysia’s output of 19m tonnes a year

[9] This government will increase natural rubber production from the current 150,000 tonnes to the level of India’s 900,000 tonnes a year

[10] Nigeria will increase the ratio of hospital beds from the current 0.5 per 1,000 people to the Turkish level of 2.7 per 1,000 people

We are supposed to be a Mint country made up of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey and a member of the D8 leading developing eight countries. The D8 is made up of Iran, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt and Nigeria, so our standards should always match up with the others.

At the moment, we are lagging behind in too many areas. As you can see, I have not compared Nigeria with any industrial giant like Germany, Japan, France or the UK.

I do not think it is too much to ask that we keep up with other developing nations. I just President Tinubu leaves China with a clear plan about how to achieve this.

Ayoakinfe@gmail.com