Should Bola Tinubu seek $100bn in international loans and spend it on the following 10 priority areas in a bid to boost Nigeria’s economy?

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Security
Provide funding for geo-political zone, state or local government security outfits to combat the current insecurity menace. Our current security architecture is wholly inadequate

[2] Restructuring
No matter how you cut it, Nigeria is going nowhere unless we end our dependence on crude oil and get the states to start acting as federating units. Our states need help to stand on their own two feet

[3] Railway
Nigeria is one huge car park. We need to move about 80% of our freight and passengers off the road and on to rail. All of our 774 local government areas need to be part of a national railway network

[4] Refineries
How can all three of our national refineries have broken down at the same time? Dangote’s refinery will ameliorate this problem but if we want a surplus of petroleum products to export, we need the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries working too

[5] Steel
No country will ever become self reliant without a domestic steel capability. We need to get the Ajaokuta, Aladja and Oshogbo steel mills up and running to full capacity

[6] Manufacturing
Every single one of our 774 local government areas must have at least one industrial estate. We will get nowhere with the current dependence on imports. Nigeria is simply not productive enough as a nation

[7] Low cost housing estates
We have a growing population and lack a housing programme to accommodate our people. Common sense will tell anyone that this is not sustainable

[8] Coastal wind farms
Nigeria has 853km of Atlantic coastline. I cannot believe that we do not have a Calabar to Badagry wind farm to generate clean energy

[9] Agro-processing
We are the world’s leading producer of cassava, yam, kolanuts, Shea nuts, etc and are among the top 10 producers of cocoa, cashew, coconuts, palm oil, neem, millet, sorghum, groundnuts, pineapples, papaya, bamboo, rubber, etc. Nigeria needs to start processing all these products

[10] Launching a national carrier
European airlines have been ripping us off for ages, it is time for a fightback. Nigeria desperately needs an airline that can compete with the likes of BA, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Emirates, Lufthansa, etc