With Nigeria’s 65th anniversary fast approaching, I hope the cabinet is working on an Independence Day speech that will include the following programmes

Ayo Akinfe

[1] We will build at least one silo in each of our 774 local government areas to store cash crops and food crops. We will then augment this by building processsing plants around these silos with the goal of adding at least 50% value to every agricultural product we produce

[2] We will get the Ajaokuta and Aladja steel mills running at full capacity. Nigeria needs to produce at least 10m tonnes of steel a year

[3] We will gather ever single head of cattle in the country into six mega ranches. We will then build industrial parks around them that produce milk, meat, leather products, animal feed and veterinary services. Basically, we will make Nigeria a major dairy product producer

[4] We will get each of our 36 states to generate, transmit and distribute at least 1,000MW of power. The whole idea is for each state to be self-reliant when it comes to power supply

[5] We will galvanise local private investors to invest at least $10bn in the economy annually. For me, religious finance has got to be at the centre of this plan as the general overseers of the evangelical churches are the ones with the liquid capital for investment

[6] We need at least 10 ports along our Atlantic coastline. We need to be able to both clear imports and ship exports within four hours. We also want to attract all the world’s shipping lines to Nigeria

[7] Tourism simply has to carry its fair share of our national economic burden. We have parts of the country, especially in the northeast that have wildlife like elephants, big cats, hyena, etc, yet we have no equivalent of Kruge National Park. A large swathe of Taraba State needs to me made a wildlife sanctuary where human habitation will be barred

[8] We will build a national railway network that will eliminate the current scourge of one third of our agricultural output going to waste due to poor roads, a lack of refrigiration, poor storage and inadequate transportation. Just imagine if all vegetable and fruit left their local government headquarters in a refrigerated rail carriage

[9] Nigeria has the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world. This needs radical action with the introduction of a raft of new taxes and the creation of a Russian-style tax police to collect them. Our government should set itself a target of raising at least $100bn from tax annually. A faith tax for instance could generate as much as $30bn

[10] We will pass a law making it compulsory for every local government area to have at least two technical colleges. Without vocational skills, we are going nowhere as a nation

ayoakinfe@gmail.com