Nigeria needs to observe a May 2 Day, the day the guns fell silent in 1945, bringing about an end to World War Two. We need to copy the way Germany rebuilt and re-industrialised her economy

Ayo Akinfe

[1] This Germanic fighting spirit is something we desperately need in Nigeria. Within five years, they had gone from bombed ruins to a nation of industrial estates. By 1954, just nine years after the war, West Germany actuality won the Fifa World Cup

[2] Most shockingly, Germany managed to develop herself into the world’s third largest economy behind the US and Japan within two decades

[3] Among other things, German Volkswagen Beetle became the world’s most successful automobile

[4] At the founding of the European Common Market in 1957 West Germany's economic growth stood in contrast to the struggling conditions at the time in the UK. You would be left wondering who actually won the war

[5] In 1948, West Germany introduced currency reforms, replacing the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation

[6] Germany then appointed as minister of economics a young man known as Ludwig Erhard, who went down in history as the father of the German economic miracle. He knew his stuff. For instance, he cut taxes sharply on moderate incomes to stimulate spending

[7] Do you know that living standards also rose steadily across West Germany, with the purchasing power of wages increasing by 73% between 1950 and 1960

[8] In East Germany, unemployment hit a record low of between 0.7 and 0.8% in 1961 to 1966 and 1970 to 1971

[9] Known as Wirtschaftswunder or Miracle on the Rhine, once all the allied restrictions were lifted, the Germans began unprecedented manufacturing. The demands of the Korean War in 1950–53 led to a global shortage of goods that helped overcome lingering resistance to the purchase of West German products. They exploited this to the maximum

[10] Germany also wooed an army of guest workers who provided an additional workforce. This allowed Germany to engage in the construction of hospitals, libraries, theaters, schools, parks, railway-stations, socially-aided housing, underground railways, airports, museums, etc. This is something Nigeria has no choice but to emulate!

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