I hope President Buhari is telling Prime Minister Johnson that Nigeria needs a lot more from her former colonial master Britain that just photo opportunities. I expect him to present a wish-list that looks like this to Downing Street

Ayo Akinfe

[1] According to Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) UK-Nigeria trade was worth £3.4bn in 2016. President Buhari should demand that this be boosted to around £50bn over the next five years. There are sectors like power, automobiles, railways, healthcare, etc where Britain has a lot of expertise that is badly needed in Nigeria

[2] Britain has one of the world’s largest wind farms in the North Sea. Why is the British government not pushing its investors to establish a similar project along Nigeria’s Atlantic coastline? President Buhari should be asking Boris to offer tax holidays and breaks to any British company that invests in the sector. I want to see an endless wall of wind turbines stretching for 800km from Badagry to Calabar

[3] Britain once used to have a thriving car manufacturing industry. Nigeria on the other hand desperately needs to start manufacturing automobiles at home to meet growing demand. Why are President Buhari and Prime Minister Johnson not discussing the locating of British car plants in Nigeria? Just imagine if we had Vauxhall and Leyland manufacturing facilities in Lagos and Abuja employing say 10,000 people and churning out vehicles for the local market

[4] Britain also owes Nigeria one big time when it comes to railways. They committed a crime against humanity when they built a narrow gauge track in Nigeria. Narrow gauge tracks are for intra-city trams or factory supply freight trains. Building a narrow gauge track from Lagos to Kano that runs at about 40km an hour is economic madness. They should be asked to compensate us for this by investment in the Nigerian railway sector

[5] Given the large number of Nigerians in the UK, it is increasingly becoming an important market for our food. As we speak, yam, egusi, gari, etc are widely available in UK supermarkets. President Buhari should get Prime Minister Johnson to sign a trade deal guaranteeing Nigerian produce shelf space in every British retail outlet

[6] We have been talking about a national carrier for ages but alas, very little has been done about it. President Buhari should be asking our former colonial masters to pledge that BA will take a 30% stake in Nigeria Air. They owe us one big time here as Britain left Nigeria with no airline. Also, Lagos to London is one of the most lucrative routes in the world and British airlines like Virgin and BA have made a fortune from it

[7] Companies like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Iceland, etc now have to buy their fruits from Southern Europe at global market prices. With the EU protection gone, countries like Nigeria should be able to compete for access to the UK market alongside Southern European suppliers. Nigeria is actually a significant fruit producer globally. We are the seventh largest pineapple producer (1.6m tonnes), sixth largest papaya producer (837,000 tonnes), 10th largest mango producer (917,000 tonnes) and 10th largest guava producer (790,000 tonnes)

[8] Do you know that Sheffield was at one time renown as the European steel capital? Yet, we have Ajaokuta rotting away. We need British Steel to invest in Ajaokuta and get the plant up and running again please

[9] Last year, Prime Minister Johnson announced that he will be spending an extra £16.5bn ($21.9bn) on defence over the next four years. 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

[10] 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