Would you not just love it if President Tinubu used his time in France to draft this Paris Declaration and then got his party to adopt it upon his return

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria will aim for annual double digit economic growth between 2025 and 2035. If we enjoy 10% growth every year for a decade, it will increase Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) to over $1trn, freeing up money for all those social amenities currently beyond the reach of our people

[2] In 2014, when we enjoyed our highest export revenue generation with oil receipts totalling $102bn. That year we had a trade surplus of about $1.5bn. However, this as we all know was not sustainable because once oil prices fell, the figure dropped dramatically. Our goal is to now increase export revenue to a minimum of $300bn by 2030. That is the only way to guarantee a surplus, given how much we import

[3] At the moment, over 90% of government revenue comes from crude oil exports. This soft underbelly makes Nigeria highly vulnerable to the vagaries of the global oil market. By 2030, we should aim to reduce this to 50% as part of an aggressive diversification plan

[4] Given that we have a very young population and are forecast to become one the world’s five most populous nations by 2050, job creation is simply a must. Unless we get our youths into factories in their millions, we will continue to have urban delinquency problems with armed youths being used to foment trouble, violence, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, ethnic clashes, political violence etc. Our goal is to create 20m manufacturing jobs by 2030

[5] In a bid to end the ongoing communal clashes that has the potential to create a food security problem in the country, we need to address the matter of pastoralism. Nigeria is by and large self-sufficient in food production and is the world’s sixth largest farm goods producer. To expand on this, we need six mega ranches, with one in each of the the largest six states of the country – Niger, Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Kaduna and Bauchi

[6] By 2030, we must aim to stop exporting crude oil. Basic economics tells us that the more value you add to a product, the higher the margins you make on its sale. Our goal should be to only export finished petroleum products by 2030

[7] Cocoa production is one area where we have a comparative advantage to most other countries in the world as you need the canopy of the tropical rain forest to grow what is known as the “food of the gods.” At the moment, we are the world’s number four cocoa producer behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia with an annual output of about 370,000 tonnes. We aim to become the world’s leading producer by 2030 with an output of 2.5m tonnes. In addition, we should seek to build a vertically integrated market involving grinding, chocolate manufacturing, packaging and branding. By 2035, Nigeria should be exporting packaged, branded finished chocolate products directly to supermarket shelves

[8] Our power supply problems will not go away even if we generate the planned 50,000MW as demand will keep growing. As we industrialise, as our population grows and we build more towns, the demand for electricity will keep increasing. We simply need to add at least 5,000MW to our capacity annually to cope with rising demand. By 2035, we should aim to generate at least 60,000MW of electricity

[9] By 2035, every one of Nigeria’s 36 states must at least generate its own running costs. At the moment, the only state that does this is Lagos State. All the other 35 are dependent on federal handouts, some wholly dependent on what is nothing but charitable aid. This is simply not sustainable

[10] Basic economics tells us that the key to all this remains manufacturing, manufacturing and manufacturing. By 2035, we should aim to get 50% of all cars driven in the country assembled locally as well as get 50% of all consumer goods like fridges, washing machines, TV sets, laptops, mobile phones, cookers, etc, manufactured locally. It is delusional to think that another economy can manufacture that amount of goods for us

ayoakinfe@gmail.com