Nigeria’s finance minister Zainab Ahmed needs to float a National Tithe Patriotic Bank in 2020 to generate investment funds

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) As 2020 looms, our debate over the next week simply has to focus on how to raise the needed capital to fund Nigeria’s infrastructural requirements. Anything else is just window dressing as our biggest headache as a country is that we do not generate enough wealth to meet our needs. Realistically, we face two simple options. We keep borrowing to fund our budget deficit or we look for alternative means to generate capital. With an annual budget of just $28bn, our expenditure far outstrips our revenue so something simply has to give

(2) I find it perplexing that we are not debating the bombshell dropped by the African Development Bank (AfDB) earlier this year. According to the AfDB, Nigeria has an annual infrastructural deficit of $100bn. Now, were we a serious nation, how to generate that revenue would be our national preoccupation at the moment but alas, we appear to very nonchalant about the matter

(3) To put it succinctly, we need to spend $100bn a year on infrastructure like rail, roads, water, electricity supply, schools, hospitals, sea ports, airports, housing, security, etc if we want to attract investment. Unless we do that, our economy will not become attractive to international investors and we will remain locked in this poverty trap. It is kind of like a chicken and egg situation. We need infrastructure to attract investors but we need investment to build infrastructure

(4) Consequently, we need to think outside the box and engage in some unprecedented lateral thinking. For me, the easiest way to raise $100bn is through a special tithe tax that will see Nigerians pay 10% of their earnings into a high interest yielding bank, which will make capital available for the government for infrastructural development

(5) One area where Nigeria is leading the world at the moment is in the area of faith houses. We have the world’s largest worship centres and there is a church or mosque on every street corner. Now, these religious bodies know how to fundraise, so we can learn a lot from them. From what I can see, if our clergymen can get millions of Nigerians to pay 10% of their wages into a fund and they use that money to build mega churches, universities and float private airlines, we can duplicate that initiative and creativity at the state level

(6) Last week, the Jigawa State governor said he will build 95 mosques across the state. Now, here is a man truly in tune with the sentiments of his people. He clearly knows how they think. No state governor in Nigeria is currently promising to build 95 secondary schools, clinics, libraries, technical schools, micro power plants, or vocational training centres and to be honest, the people are not demanding them. I put it to you that building 95 mosques or churches will always be more popular than building 95 secondary schools in Nigeria today. This is because faith is more important to us than socio-economic development. We thus have to find a way to tap into the sentimentality of faith and generate capital the way churches and mosques do. How do we transfer this passion for faith into patriotic fervour?

(7) I want to see the finance ministry float a National Patriotic Tithe Bank and ask Nigerians to pay 10% of their earnings into it. State governments can contribute too, while mosques and churches should be encouraged to bankroll it as well. In fact, will have about six general overseers and imams on its board of directors to encourage their followers to support the project enthusiastically

(8) Cast your minds back to after World War One. Do you know that Germany was asked to pay war indemnities that added up to $33bn? Now, the German state had collapsed, the economy was in shreds and industry was barely functioning but alas, the German elite still found a way to pay up as a means of getting French troops off their soil. I believe we can get Nigeria’s elite and people to similarly raise $100bn a year. If people are happy to give such money to their churches and mosques not wanting anything in return, surely we can get them to do likewise to better their communities

(9) All we have to do is float this National Patriotic Tithe Bank, with the federal government having something like a 25% stake in it. State governments, private organisations, religious bodies and individuals will then be encouraged to pay 10% of their monthly earnings into it. If the interest rate is as high as say 30%, people will be encouraged to keep their capital there for lengthy periods of time

(10) Capital from this bank will strictly be for infrastructural development. Every project must be properly costed with a payback period no longer than five years. If for instance we build a Lagos to Onitsha high speed rail link for $10bn, within five years, that money must be recovered and the railway line must start making a profit. Likewise if we build a toll road, power plant, sea port or shopping mall. Tough times call for drastic solutions and I challenge any other of the 200m Nigerians out there to come up with a better solution