During your working life, 65 is the age a lot of people retire from their normal jobs. As Nigeria has reached that milestone now, let 2025 be the year in which we retire from the mass importation of consumer goods

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Rather pathetically, annually, Nigeria irresponsibly and wastefully spends about $11bn importing products that can easily be produced locally

[2] Over recent years, the Central Bank of Nigeria has waded into the matter by drawing up a list of products for which foreign exchange will not be made available to importers but that is only one tenth of the battle.

[3] You can ban imports but such bans will become unenforceable unless you fill the vacuum with local production. If you do not, all that will happen is smuggling will thrive as demand will need to be met

[4] It is pathetic that Nigeria is importing produce which she has the capacity to produce in abundance. I look forward to the day we will have a trade and industry minister who actually sets production targets in Nigeria

[5] In somewhere like Delta State for instance where there is an abundance of wood, why has the state government not gathered all the industrialists in Government House and read them the riot act - Start manufacturing finished goods from all these forestry products!

[6] Can someone please tell me why the Delta State government has not set local industrialists a target to manufacture 10m tonnes of toothpicks annually. There is nothing stopping Nigeria becoming the world’s largest toothpick producer tomorrow. Shamelessly, we are a mass importer of toothpicks

[7] In any developing economy, industrial targets are simply a must. We simply have to play catch up or we will be perpetually dependent on the industrialised nations for all our consumer needs

[8] Setting industrial targets was one thing the Soviet Union gave the world. They delivered on this big time and Vladimir Putin has continued that tradition. As we speak, Russia’s oligarchs always meet investment and industrial targets set for them by the Kremlin

[9] Sadly, no Nigerian president or state governor has ever had time for this kind thinking. Across the board, production targets should be set with severe penalties for those who fail to meet them

[10] What I would love to see is the country’s trade and minister declare that Nigeria has set herself the following export revenue targets for 2026:

[1] Steel nails -$35m

[2] Toothpicks - $18m

[3] Petrol - $6bn

[4] Fertilizer - $500m

[5] Brazilian hair - $400m

[6] Sugar - $406m

[7] Rice - $302m

[8] Fish - $170m

[9] Generators - $2bn

[10] Phone handsets - $745m

ayoakinfe@gmail.com