Boris Johnson has just announced plans to spend £16.5bn on defence. President Buhari should be in the phone to Downing Street with an audacious plan demanding a share of the action

Ayo Akinfe

(1) British prime minister Boris Johnson has just announced that he will be spending an extra £16.5bn ($21.9bn) on defence over the next four years. Nigeria could help that money go far if the British outsource some of the work to us

(2) Just imagine the number of British firms that would be queuing up for a piece of the action if Nigeria had announced a £16.5bn spending programme. If we want to survive in today’s world, we simply need to be competitive. Remaining an eternal consumer is a recipe for economic collapse and disaster

(3) Nigeria has 853km of Atlantic coastline but embarrassingly does not have one shipyard. We shamelessly lack the capacity to assemble ships but this should be an opportunity to reverse that. President Buhari should present Prime Minister Johnson with an action plan that will kill two birds with one stone

(4) Our case is very straightforward. If a British shipyard like Swan Hunter or Vickers opens a facility in say Uyo, Degema, Opobo, Bonny or Warri, we should offer to build these British frigates at half the cost they would be done in Britain

(5) Most of the British spending will go on the Royal Navy. If President Buhari can guarantee that a company like Innoson Motors can supply all the engineering equipment at about a third of the original estimated costs, will the British really be able to reject his offer?

(6) For ancillary equipment like uniforms, signalling gear, telecommunications equipment, etc, we should be asking British companies to come and open plants on Nigeria as part of a 30 year supply deal

(7) IT services are already outsourced to Asia these days anyway but we can supply it cheaper. All we have to do is offer the necessary security guarantees. Opening a call centre in say Lagos will cost Britain less than using one in London or Mumbai

(8) If Innoson Motors can manufacture jeeps, they can also manufacture tanks. President Buhari should take Innocent Chukwuma with him to a meeting in Downing Street to present the case

(9) Any economist will tell Britain that they will be able to manufacture and assemble helicopters at about half the price in Nigeria even when taking into account factory start-up costs. I hope President Buhari has a package to woo these British manufacturers

(10) This is the kind of global supply deal Nigeria needs to start cashing in on if we want to get the country out of the woods. At the moment we are just canon fodder for the rest of the world. If we remain an eternal consumer, ultimately, Nigeria will just give way under our feet