Buhari needs to isolate 50 of Nigeria’s best brains at a location like the Obudu Cattle Ranch for 14 days during which period they must come up with an economic resuscitation programme

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) I am not sure the reality of what is coming has really hit the average Nigerian. My people appear to think that Covid-19 will soon be over and life will return to normal. Unfortunately, the government is not telling us that such thinking is utopian. Tough times lie ahead

(2) Nobody is buying crude oil right now and as stocks pile up, most countries have realised they can save a lot of money my limiting their petroleum imports. Once the lockdown is lifted, all these buyers will revert to production methods that require less crude oil. Very soon we will get the message loud and clear when our import revenue drops by two thirds

(3) Only the naive and historically illiterate will believe that the world will come out of a global pandemic without major changes in economic life. One just needs to check the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the Bubonic Plague of 1347 to understand that such turmoils are always followed by huge changes. Life simply never reverts back to normal after such upheavals

(4) Other Opec members have realised this and begun taking measures to adjust their economies accordingly. In Saudi Arabia for instance they have tripled VAT, while in Algeria, the government has decided to limit all borrowing to internal lending to fund a diversification programme

(5) Nigeria is not going to be selling 2.5m barrels of oil a day at $100 a barrel anytime soon but it appears we are not alive to that reality. If we were, we would be asking ourselves where we are going to generate the revenue to replace these oil earnings from

(6) What our sharp minds should be doing now is selecting some sectors where we have a competitive advantage and targeting them for massive industrial expansion as the lockdown gets lifted. Maybe identify 10 areas of the economy that can generate us a combined sum of $100bn per annum

(7) To get this right, we need to prepare a Post-Covid-19 Economic Revival Handbook with clear targets, goals and modus operandi. It needs to dot every I and Cross every T, blocking any loopholes and having a Plan B for every eventuality

(8) I think 14 days should be enough time to come up with a document which will effective be - Nigeria’s Alternative to Oil. What President Buhari should be doing now is drawing up the list of our 50 sharpest minds to serve on this committee

(9) At least a third of its members must be enterprueners, pastorprueners, industrialists and investors, who will leave the summit with investment assignments and production targets. It is pointless making plans unless you are prepared to aggressively force their implementation. At this meeting, the likes of Aliko Dangote, Mike Otedola, Mike Adenuga, Innocent Chukwuma, Folorunsho Alakija, David Oyedepo, Enoch Adeboye, etc must all leave with an agreement to meet the production targets allocated to them when it comes to steel, automobile, manufacturing, power generation, etc

(10) This pandemic coming on Nigeria 60th anniversary should Mark a turning point in our history. It should be the harbinger of the sub-Saharan industrialisation programme. A second industrial revolution only this time based in tropical Africa