10 bitter truths I would love President Bola Tinubu to tell Nigerians in his 65th Independence Day anniversary address later today

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria is too large for her current import-dependence economic model. We will never be able to afford consumer good imports for 200m people and even if we could, no nation will be able to supply us with the quantities we want at the time we want these goods

[2] If we want our economy to grow, we need to adopt the South Korean stance of anything we do not produce, we do not need. Nigerians love designer clothes but do not manufacture them. Now that is called economics of the mad house. Our love of Gucci products means thr company MUST have a factory in Nigeria

[3] Nigeria cannot afford to send pilgrims to Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem every year. All these pilgrimages deplete the Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign reserves as pilgrims bleed it dry of dollars. It is a fallacy that only government spending hurts our economy

[4] About half of the world’s monarchs are in Nigeria. We cannot afford this as it bleeds our state governments dry. It is governors who pick up the tabs for all these traditional rulers. Surely that money is better spent on schools, hospitals, roads, libraries, etc

[5] By 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous nation on earth after India and China. Our current landmass of 923,768 km² is inadequate to sustain the projected population of 400m. We subsequently need to open merger and amalgamation talks with our neighbours Benin Republic, Cameroon and Niger Republic

[6] We will never be able to defeat Boko Haram, Iswap and all these other terrorist groups until we start manufacturing our armaments, military hardware and equipment locally. Nobody is storing equipment for Nigeria to just come and buy

[7] Our economy cannot withstand all these jamborees and junkets in choice locations like Dubai, Seychelles, the Caribbean, etc. If we want our tourism industry to grow, we need to pass laws compelling wealthy Nigerians to hold such parties locally

[8] As a nation state, we cannot afford all these private jets currently in the country. We need to sell them off and use the proceeds to buy aircraft for a national carrier that will generate revenue for our economy

[9] With foreign direct investment in short supply, we need to aggressively tap into local investment. As things stands, those with the most liquid capital to invest are the evangelical churches. We desperately need to find a way to tap into this religious capital

[10] We are deluding ourselves if we think we can sustain our current economic model whereby the 36 states rely on federal government oil handouts for their survival. Every state and each of our 774 local government areas has got to become viable and self-sustaining

ayoakinfe@gmail.com