Getting our priorities right!

(1) My people, as we approach an election, do we know what we need as a nation? Are we focusing our attention in the right places?

(2) Do you know that Malaysia generates $15.6bn annually from the export of palm oil produce?

(3) For those not aware, they took the original seedlings for palm oil from Nigeria in 1870

(4) Now, the Malaysian Palm oil industry employs about 500,000 people, most of them in processing factories

(5) Malaysia’s palm oil industry produces about 90m tonnes of lignocellulosic biomass, including empty fruit bunches, oil palm trunks, and oil palm fronds, as well as palm oil mill effluent

(6) Across Malaysia, about 6m hectares (60,000 square kilometres) are under palm oil cultivation producing 20m tonnes of palm oil alone. Now, Kwara State alone is made up of 36,825 square kilometres while Benue State is made up of 34,000 square kilometres. In these two states, we have more land that can be devoted to palm oil production than the whole of Malaysia

(7) Nigeria’s total budget is only $20bn. Now, we are spending so much time and energy chasing thieves who stole $50m here and $500m there. Good idea but we have to ask ourselves if it is worth all the effort. Are we getting value for money?

(8) Nuhu Ribadu under Obasanjo recovered about $5bn in four years, most of it Abacha loot. That is the most successful we have ever been in recovering stolen money but when you look at the costs, ask yourself what Nigeria got from it. Also, have the people of Nigeria felt the impact of this recovered money?

(9) I would rather expend energy trying to generate $15bn in palm oil export revenue annually than chasing $5bn in stolen money over four years. Diversifying our economy is what is going to lift us out of poverty not fighting corruption.

(10) Basically, even if there was zero corruption in Nigeria and every single penny of our $20bn budget was spent judiciously, we would still be a poor and beggarly nation. This emphasis on corruption is derailing us from the core problem. We need to get our priorities right!