Muhammadu Buhari was the de facto Sardauna, so the best parting gift the APC and ADC alliance could give him would be to reach a consensus on how to bridge the socio-economic gap between northern and southern Nigeria

Ayo Akinfe

[1] No matter how you cut it, the main responsibility for getting northern Nigeria out of her current economic morass lies with the Northern State Governors Forum (NSGF). It is not the federal government that is going to create local jobs, it is the state governments but Abuja needs to keep up the pressure on the NSGF to eradicate poverty in their states

[2] For starters, the National Assembly should pass a bill which mandates the governors of the 19 northern states to provide monthly updates on how many jobs they have created. It is no accident that these 19 states are churning out bandits, kidnappers, terrorists, etc in their hundreds on a daily basis

[3] Nigeria’s population is growing at a rate of 2.6% annually. This means that we need to create 5.2m jobs every year just to remain stagnant and not suffer negative growth. We are not even creating 1.2m jobs a year so it is no surprise that poverty is having a field day in Nigeria. We all know what part of the country is most badly affected. These 19 governors need to be given monthly job creation targets, with severe penalties for failing to meet them

[4] According to the Brookings Institute, Africa needs to create between 12m and 15m jobs annually to absorb the youth entering the labour market. I am not aware of any programme in place to realise this, so it is time for Africans to spell out the dangers to the rest of the world. They either invest in Africa and create jobs or be prepared to live with another Afghanistan. What stops the NSGF from leading the charge on this?

[5] Just imagine the number of jobs we would have created across the African continent if we had say three major Covid-19 manufacturing facilities at each end of Africa. Maybe a pharmaceutical plant in Egypt, a ventilator factory in Nigeria and a hospital clothing manufacturing facility in South Africa. Is there anything preventing President Tinubu actually demanding this from the international community? There are other ailments out there that require the same treatment as Covid-19

[6] In Nigeria, we are sitting on a particularly explosive time bomb because 80m Nigerians live below the poverty line, we have the highest number of internal refugees on the planet and the country has 13m out-of-school children. We are not the poverty capital of the world by accident. Our problem is we have no strategy to get out of this quagmire. Why has the NSGF not been held to account for this?

[7] To make matters worse, in Nigeria, the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) is very lopsided. About 71% of all FDI in Nigeria goes into Lagos State. This is where the NSGF needs to step up its game big time and set itself a target of the 19 states at least matching Lagos in terms of attracting inward investment annually

[8] Just to give you an example, before the pandemic struck, during the second quarter of 2019, Lagos State attracted $4.13bn worth of foreign investment. I want the NSGF to ringfence about 10 key sectors where they will attract $4bn worth of FDI during the third quarter of 2025

[9] When I look at animal husbandry, food processing, cash crop production, power generation, horticulture, textile processing, leather tanneries, dairy products, machine tool manufacturing, automobile/motorcycle/bicycle assembly etc, I see immense opportunities on the horizon. Can the APC and ADC Alliance members currently leaving Daura please agree to generate at least $20bn a year from these sectors. I would suggest they meet at Katsina Airport before boarding their private jets to discuss the matter

[10] As a first step, the NSGF has to get its states to rescind Sharia law as this is a big turn off to investors. It is no accident that the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia are all repealing their strict Sharia laws in a bid to woo investors. This would be a befitting parting gift to Muhammadu Buhari

ayoakinfe@gmail.com