Nigeria needs to create specialised business courts, whose sole objective is to resolve commercial disputes within 90 days. It needs to overhaul the appointment of judges to ensure only competent hands make it to the Bench.
The judiciary and civil service need to be sanitised of corruption, and all the investment laws and guidelines must be in a single portal online for global accessibility.
Finally, monopoly, reckless taxes, and duties wavers given to a privileged few by the government should stop. A situation where two cousins are treated like kings, especially with regard to foreign exchange allocation in the major commodities business in Nigeria, puts foreign investors at a disadvantage.
May 29, 2024: What will be the policy thrust of Louis V Gerstner if he were to be in President Tinubu’s shoes?
Dear folks, I am not going to bore you with a long speech today. Below are my 12 policy thrusts for the next three years:
Food Security: An empty sack cannot stand; therefore, we are decentralising agriculture. The horizontal farming method we have practised for 50 years has not met our collective aspirations as a nation. Therefore, I am devolving the power to feed Nigerians to the 774 local governments. Each LGA should come up with specific crops and quantities they will generate yearly, making use of half of the 40 million hectares of arable land in Nigeria.
A quarterly report will be posted on the Food Security Portal, which will be unveiled in the next 72 hours. My government will train and empower 100 mechanised farmers per LGA. Food is local, solutions should be localised.
Provision of 24/7 electricity: To this end, I am appointing Professor Berth Nnaji as our new Minister for Power and Gas (MPG). Berth gave birth to 24/7 electricity in Aba, we are challenging him to do it for the whole country. His target for the next three years of my administration is to light up 10 major commercial centres in Nigeria as Phase 1. Gas is added to Nnaji’s portfolio to ensure there are no bottlenecks in his way.
Re-industrialisation: No industrialisation, no transformation. Therefore, I am setting up eight industrial parks immediately where electricity will be 24/7. Foreigners can own land, and each industrial park will have a business court police station, banks, schools, modern hospitals, DSS offices, etc. It will be a complete self-sustaining ecosystem where the ease of doing business will be world-class. To this end, I beckon on Professor Pat Utomi to coordinate the Re-Industrialisation of Nigeria Project (RINP).
Additionally, Patito’s Gang is hereby mandated to submit a report on the exodus of Western corporations and what can be done to stop it. Secondly, against the background of the emerging new world order, the team should review our solid minerals strategy and come up with a new road map. Also, which five industries should Nigeria focus on in which we have comparative advantage? Furthermore, do a review of our oil business management and recommend best options to handle the nightmare that NNPC has become.
Additionally, what changes should we make to our education curricula to align it with the above re-industrialisation objectives so that universities, industries, citizens, and government can sing from the same song sheet?
Ending poverty task force: My administration intends to halve the poverty rate in the next three years. I am setting up a presidential task force today to be headed by Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former CBN governor. In 2019, Nigeria replaced India as the world’s poverty capital. In 2022, 133 million Nigerians were categorised as extremely poor. Between January and June 2023, another four million Nigerians fell into the deplorable poverty basket. Sanusi’s task force should study the following models: India, Thailand, Israel, South Korea, and China. How did China manage to lift 800 million Chinese from poverty in 30 years to the middle class, and how can Nigeria lift 30 million Nigerians yearly from poverty to the middle class?
Re-imagining education team: I am setting up a team to be headed by Dr. Oby Ezekwesili. I would like her and the team to visit five topmost education countries to study what makes them outstanding. Why is China dumping America’s STEM/STEAM education system of 50 years and replacing it with artificial intelligence? What is in the Israeli education system that makes them exceptionally innovative and dominating the Nobel prizes? What is in the Scandinavian education system that makes unemployment alien? Why are the students in the Little Dragons’ nations (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea) so good in mathematics? How do we end the exportation of people and begin to export knowledge instead? The JAPA model is like a poultry farmer selling her healthiest hens instead of eggs.
A time will come when there will be no more eggs to sell because the remnants hens are too old to lay new eggs. We have lost a whole generation (1985-2015) of our best and brightest minds to JAPA. We are about to lose the second generation (GENZ). No nation can survive for long, losing two generations of competent nation-builders. Before darkness envelopes Nigeria, we need the Oby’s team’s roadmap.
Ending medical tourism: There is a huge crisis in our primary health care delivery system. A situation where about 55 per cent of competent doctors didn’t renew their practice license in 2023 is the reason I am declaring a state of emergency in the health sector today. My administration is ready to set up six centres of medical excellence, upgrading the existing facilities we have in UCH, LUTH, etc.
I need a team of nine most competent medical doctors in Nigeria and overseas to re-work the health sector force. If you are the one that Nigeria needs, send your profile to my hotline immediately – 0803……..
Reducing cost of governance and dismantling corruption architecture: Starting with myself and the presidency, I am cutting the 2024 budget allocated to my office and those of the VP, First Lady, Chief of Staff, etc. by 50 per cent. I am auctioning half of the Presidential jets and cars in the presidential fleet to the highest bidders. Also, I enjoin all my ‘’bosses’’ in the National Assembly that the N500m-N3b each of them is to collect for community projects should be used to stop the crises in the education and health sectors. More importantly, I need to recover the looted money.
I hereby instruct the EFCC chairman that, going forward, since his office has a budget, I will equally give them a target of $10 billion to recover from looters in 2024! The chairman needs to prioritise VIP looters. Also, I am signing today what I tag Dead Public Officers Act 2024, the goal is to empower my government with legal instrument to recover all the monies illegally acquired by dead public officers lying idle in different financial institutions worldwide.
Anything found in their respective accounts that is far beyond their legitimate income, and without any trace of business done to justify it while they were alive, will be forfeited to the CBN. To this end, I am instructing all the banks’ CEOs to forward to my office all the outstanding balances in the accounts belonging to dead customers who happened to have held public offices in their lifetime. I am also signing another law today tagged: 90 Days Amnesty For Treasury Looters Act. This is to enable all the people who are holding funds belonging to Nigeria illegally to voluntarily refund such to the CBN’s dedicated account within the next 90 days. Those who comply voluntarily will be free from EFCC hunt.
Achieving peaceful co-existence and security: To achieve peace in the East, I have decided to pardon Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader standing trial for sundry reasons, to Ohaneze. I would like Ohanaeze leadership to send a letter requesting for his pardon and stating their resolve and commitment that when released, Kanu will work for the peace, progress, and stability of Nigeria. My thoughts are always with people in the Middle Belt and North East who have been living in the IDP camps for over a decade. I am strongly convinced that a country should not legalise or accept abnormality as the norm.
To this end, myself as C-in-C with my VP, Minister of Defence, NSA, CDS, Chief of Army and IGP will be leading those internally displaced persons back to their respective villages symbolically on October 1, 2024, (Freedom Day for internally displaced indigenous people of Nigeria) in a motorcade. Before then, I expect the security agencies to have beefed up security and empower the locals with necessary training and tools to protect themselves and their land. I will build new army resettlement centres in those volatile communities from the 50 per cent savings on the 2024 budget.
I will recall some retired military officers (especially those who hail from that region) who are on the reserve list immediately and get them to live together with the indigenous people in those volatile places on rotation with a robust special allowance for their upkeep. This will provide another layer of security.
Re-work FEC: I have decided to inject new blood into the Federal Executive Council. All non-performers will be dropped. Consequently, 60 per cent of the positions will be allocated on merit, while the remaining 40 per cent will be used to service political interests and party loyalty.
From the experience of Deng, the man who modernised China, a government must sit on three pillars, which are the Zacchaeus, the Builders, and the Balancers (ZBB). The Zacchaeus are the revenue mobilisers, of which we have more than enough in my government. The Builders are the people looking into the productivity angle while the Balancers ensure the budgets make common sense, align with the national priorities and are balanced. I will bring in more Builders and Balancers immediately.
To be continued.
Akano is President, One Africa Initiatives He can be reached via: timakano1@gmail.com
