Ways out of this economic abyss

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo again came down hard on Buhari’s administration recently when he accused the government of poor management of the country’s economy. He said, “Whatever the leadership may personally claim, most Nigerians know that they are poorer today than when the APC came in and Nigeria is more impoverished with our foreign loan jumping from $3.6bn to over $18bn to be paid by the present and future generations of Nigerians.”
He also told Nigerians that “Those who govern us at all levels must be made to realise that it is our collective rights and sovereignty that they hold in trust for us and to be used for the good of all of us and with all of us having interest and having a stake in how we are governed. It is our God-given right, and we must not allow the abuse of it.”
He said the “The country is more divided than ever before because the leadership is playing the ethnic and religious game which is very unfortunate,” adding that the country is more insecure and unsafe for everybody.
Whichever way we may look at it, Obasanjo’s statement is faultless. He actually spoke the minds of millions of Nigerians who have been silently and unbelievably watching the lacklustre way we are governed in recent years. For example, are Nigerians not more impoverished today than they were in 2015? Has the country’s foreign loan not jumped from $3.6bn to over $18bn under the watch of this administration and will the huge loan not be paid by the present and future generations of Nigerians with its harsh and undesirable consequences on the country’s
economy?
My father told me many years ago that he who goes to borrow throws himself into sorrow, especially if the borrower cannot pay as per the agreed terms. Was it a good option for the federal government to take foreign loan in U.S dollars to settle local Naira debts knowing well the debilitating economic crisis that foreign debt arising from trade accruals threw the country and its economy into in the 1980s? Was it right for the Senate to approve that the federal government should take such hot foreign loan that will burn our fingers in the future? As citizens of this country don’t we have a stake in how we are governed?
Up to now, it sounds inconceivable that Nigeria could blindly run into economic comatose in spite of her vast God given natural resources and under the watch of top government officials and in the presence of their so-called economic advisers? Was it a question of government’s refusal to take their recommendations?
Also, it beats my imagination how Nigeria with its vast and rich agricultural land could be facing food crisis, in particular, hunger and starvation in some parts of the country? I can also not understand why the government still allows the importation of simple engineering devices such as tricycles, various motor parts and motorcycles when the manufacturers could be compelled to come and set up their factories here.
Going forward, Nigerian leaders must expunge those unpopular government policies that have bedevilled the nation and plunged the country into the depth of developmental abyss. Our leaders must understand and imbibe various examples of developed countries that deployed reasonable economic strategies for noteworthy developments. China, in particular, is currently leading the world in economic growth and at the same time doing exceptionally well in the provision of adequate welfare for its citizens. China’s transformation over the last two decades therefore stands a good model for us to study and copy.
We must remember that China moved up from being a poor nation with an economy that was producing few goods for export and importing a little. Today, it has become the factory hub of the world. The transformation of China is a developmental history that we can study and use appropriately as solutions to our variegated national
challenges.
We can start by locally producing many simple machines that can process agricultural items such as food for local consumption and for the export market and also produce small scale machinery for
industrial use. From this we can move to the production of complex machineries. The Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC), the Federal Industrial Research Institute, Oshodi (FIIRO), in Lagos and Product Development Agency (PRODA) in Enugu should be sufficiently funded to be at the forefront of the new engineering transformation
effort.