I hope that President Tinubu’s visit to London involves a mini summit at Downing Street with new prime minister Andy Burnham where they agree something like this

Ayo Akinfe

[1] At the moment, Nigeria is the UK’s fastest growing export market. We want to see this grow dramatically with an annual foreign direct investment (FDI) target of $1bn for British investors in Nigeria?

[2] According to Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) UK-Nigeria trade was worth £3.4bn as far back as 2016. President Tinubu should have a wish list demanding that this be boosted to around £50bn over the next five years. There are sectors like power, automobiles, railways, healthcare, etc where Britain has a lot of expertise that is badly needed in Nigeria

[3] Britain has one of the world’s largest wind farms in the North Sea. Why is the British government not pushing its investors to establish a similar project along Nigeria’s Atlantic coastline? President Tinubu should be asking for tax holidays and breaks to any British company that invests in the sector. We want to see an endless wall of wind turbines stretching for 800km from Badagry to Calabar

[4] Britain once used to have a thriving car manufacturing industry. Nigeria on the other hand desperately needs to start manufacturing automobiles at home to meet growing demand. President Tinubu and Prime Minister Burnham need to agree the locating of British car plants in Nigeria? Just imagine if we had Vauxhall and Leyland manufacturing facilities in Lagos and Abuja employing say 10,000 people each and churning out vehicles for the local market

[5] One of the reasons why the British automobile industry collapsed is because she did not expand it into her former colonies. In contrast, the likes of Volkswagen, Peugeot, Toyota, Nissan, etc moved into markets like Nigeria big time. Can Prime Minister Burnham turn this around, making Nigeria his major overseas market?

[6] Britain also owes Nigeria one big time when it comes to railways. They committed a crime against humanity when they built a narrow gauge track in Nigeria. Narrow gauge tracks are for intra-city trams or factory supply freight trains. Building a narrow gauge track from Lagos to Kano that runs at about 40km an hour is economic madness. They should be asked to compensate us for this with massive investment in the Nigerian railway sector

[7] Given the large number of Nigerians in the UK, it is increasingly becoming an important market for our food. As we speak, yam, egusi, gari, etc are widely available in UK supermarkets. President Tinubu should get Prime Minister Burnham to sign a trade deal guaranteeing Nigerian produce shelf space in every British retail outlet

[8] We have been talking about a national carrier for ages but alas, very little has been done about it. President Tinubu should be asking our former colonial masters to pledge that BA will take a 30% stake in Air Peace. They owe us one big time here as Britain left Nigeria with no airline. Also, Lagos to London is one of the most lucrative routes in the world and British airlines like Virgin and BA have made a fortune from it

[9] We have seen Britain recently unveil its ultra-modern Elizabeth Line. Can they please invest in a similar Lagos Underground Network to relieve the city of its congestion

[10] Can Britain invest in a Eurostar type of Lagos to Abuja high speed rail link?

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