I am yet to hear the new Ecowas chairman utter one word on foreign policy. Is Tinubu aware of the fact that he needs a radical approach if he wants to attract foreign direct investment into West Africa and Nigeria

[1] For starters, I hope Tinubu is aware of the fact that Africa as a continent only accounts for 4% of world trade and 1% of global manufacturing. Yet, she accounts for 18% of humanity’s population. Clearly, this is not sustainable, so an aggressive Nigerian foreign policy is required to correct the imbalance

[2] To make matters worse, of the 42 landlocked countries in the world, 16 are in Africa. Many of these African mini nations are too weak, small and lacking in natural resources to be viable. Nigeria needs a radical foreign policy that will reduce the number of African nation states to no more than 12

[3] Aliko Dangote always talks about the difficulties he faces when negotiating with so many African nations. If we significantly reduce the number of countries, we would remove a lot of impediments to growth and create a genuine free trade area and common market of 12 sovereign nations. With so many weak and small nations, world powers are having a field day in Africa. There are only few African nations that can for instance refuse to accept US rice, Chinese cement or French wine

[4] We can only blame colonialism and imperialism for our problems for so long. After a point in time we have to accept responsibility for our own destiny. Personally, I stopped blaming Europe for Africa's woes in 2010 when most of our nation states hit 50. That was enough time to turn round the exploitation we suffered

[5] I hope that like me, President Tinubu is dreaming of a continent made up of about 12 economic giants that are genuine competitors on the world stage and who can match say the Chinese, Americans and European Union in terms of productivity, inventions, sports, academics, military might and creativity. With some of the tiny and hapless mini states we have at the moment, we will forever remain an under-developed continent

[6] Were I in President Tinubu’s shoes, as Ecowas chairman, the first thing I would be proposing the creation of a United Socialist Republic of West Africa (USRWA) with a population of 1bn people. This super power will have a gross domestic product of $20trn and an annual budget of about $5trn

[7] Structured a bit like Canada, English and French would be USRWA’s two official languages. This nation will have a military made up of 10m standing troops and would also have a nuclear capability

[8] To the end this global practice of the rest of the world feeding off our carcas, USRWA will ultimately have 50 aircraft carriers, 5,000 fighter jets, 200 submarines, 20,000 battle tanks, 100 navy Destroyers and a military helicopter fleet of 1,500

[9] This African super power must account for 50% of all global food production, for 50% of all global steel production and about 80% of the world’s tropical disease hospitals and research centres will be located in this Socialist Republic of West Africa. will also account for the production of 50% of the world’s pharmaceuticals

[10] In the sporting arena, it must reign supreme, always topping the Olympics table and winning one out of every two Fifa World Cups. Coming less than third in an Olympic Games would be totally unacceptable. I hope President Tinubu realises he needs to dream big like this if he wants to turn our fortunes around