Whoever wins Nigeria’s next presidential election has got to make the naming of a manufacturing czar his immediate priority

Ayo Akinfe

[1] I must confess that I for one have very little faith in these forthcoming elections. Nobody is debating policies, manifestos and ideas, so it is looking like the polls are not going to be about issues

[2] Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “A newborn government must dazzle and astonish.” If the new administration that assumes office next year wants to do this, it needs to tackle the urgent problems of insecurity, power supply and above all our limited manufacturing capacity

[3] We basically need three of our brightest sparks and most energetic beings in charge of these ministries. A day after the president-elect is announced, I would expect him to immediately appoint ministers for security, power supply and manufacturing

[4] I hate this Nazi but Albert Speer became Germany’s minister of armaments and munitions in 1942 and assumed significant responsibility for the war economy. He sped up the production of tanks, aircraft, submarines, assault rifles, anti-tank guns, etc in an unprecedented manner

[5] Speer placed a cap of 45 years on the managers of all armament factories. He then sought to step up mass-production in the German economy to enable it compete with the allies

[6] Among the positions Speer held were inspector-general of German roadways and the inspector-general for water and energy. He proved to be ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. Speer set out to gain control not just of armaments production in the army but in the whole armed forces

[7] Speer was fêted at the time and in the post-war era, for performing an armaments miracle in which German war production dramatically increased. Nigeria needs someone who can perform such a manufacturing miracle in sectors like automobiles, TV sets, motorcycles, mobile phones, electric meters, transformers, etc

[8] In August 1943, Speer took control of most of Germany’s ministry of economics, to become, in Admiral Dönitz's words - Europe's economic dictator. Nigeria desperately needs such a person today as we need to grow our economy from around $400bn to say $1trn in about two years

[9] Just take security alone. One big problem our armed forces have is they have to wait for imported equipment. Most of this second hand equipment is getting obsolete anyway and we do not get the quantities we want at the time we want. Every serious nation must be able to manufacture its own defence equipment

[10] Albert Speer had some very unpalatable excesses which we should not copy but he knew how to increase production. It was befitting that he was jailed for 20 years in 1946 as punishment for his role as a leading Nazi but that does not negate his industrial development blueprints. I look forward to seeing Nigeria’s industrial blueprint

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