How to get Nigeria to the next level

Dear PMB, this is how to get Nigeria to the next level:

1. Nigeria urgently needs a massive economic stimulus programme. If he can summon the energy, Presient Buhari should significantly increase spending in sectors, projects and programmes that boost the economy, generate employment and promote inclusive growth. He should prioritise infrastructure, labour-intensive manufacturing such as textiles and footwear, agro-processing, youth entrepreneurship projects, health and education.

2. Nigeria has a very large stock of human and natural resources that aren’t being used optimally. Meanwhile, there is a huge infrastructural deficit. These range from dilapidated roads, epileptic electricity supply, acute water shortages, crumbling public buildings, grossly underfunded public tertiary institutions and so on. The gap can be closed through public works projects executed with direct labour.

3. President Buhari’s stimulus spending should be directed toward manufacturing and agro-processing. The manufacturing sector accounts for only 12% of employment in the country, down from a high of over 30% in the 1980s. During its heydays in the 1970s-1980s, the Nigerian textile industry alone employed almost 1 million workers. Today it employs about 30,000 workers.

According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, the contribution of manufacturing to the country’s GDP has been flat at 4%. This is well below the 12% targeted by the government.

4. Taking charge:

In this first term, Buhari ceded too much economic policymaking responsibility to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Though a brilliant lawyer and professor, Osinbajo has no experience in economic management.

To move the economy to the next level, and thus regain the trust of Nigerians who have given him a second chance, the president must surround himself with a more talented team of economists.

The Conversation