By Ayo Akinfe
President Tinubu needs to build on the CBN’s ban on the spraying of naira by sending a bill to the National Assembly that will compel Nigerians to invest that money in cooperative societies
For starters, we need mega manufacturing plants in the following sectors:
[1] Okada riders
[2] Fabric retailers
[3] Cocoa farmers
[4] Automobile spare parts traders
[5] Luxurious bus companies
[6] Fishermen who use trawlers
[7] Generator distributors
[8] Livestock herdsmen who use animal feed
[9] Major microphone users like churches and mosques
[10] Food crop farmers who use fertilisersI believe money saved from the wasteful, inflationary and vane practice of spraying should be used to open manufacturing facilities across Nigeria.
Maybe call this new legislation the Nigerian Owambe to Manufacturing Bill.
[1] Europe was developed by cooperative societies and guilds
[2] In every industrialised nation, trade guilds got together to form cooperative societies that delved into manufacturing
[3] Nobody else can have a passion for a product like those who trade in and use it
[4] In all these areas, it is the market operators that actually have the liquid cash to invest
[5] If all the money sprayed at Nigerian parties every weekend went into a fund, within five years, we would have the capital for major investments programmes
[6] If cooperative societies were formed, they could easily approach banks for low-interest rate loans to augment their capital
[7] Cooperative societies can also easily attract foreign partners. Would the likes of Cadbury, Nestle and Mars not be keen to enter into an alliance with a Nigerian cocoa farmers cooperative?
[8] Cooperative societies would also be able to provide training for their members. I would like to see them all offer some form of vocational certification like say City & Guilds, which is what happened in the UK.
[9] Nigerians are currently waiting on the government to provide jobs in all these areas but I can tell them that we will wait until kingdom come for that. Our government does not have either the expertise or liquid capital to invest in any of these sectors. In contrast, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria could easily fund a mega ranch tomorrow and open an animal feed company there. All they have to do is invest all that money they are currently splashing out on AK47s on beneficial ventures
[10] I am perplexed as how Nigeria can be the world’s major user of products like fabric lace, small and medium generators, motorcycle taxis, etc and not manufacture one of them. This takes intellectual laziness to unprecedented heights.
All 200m Nigerians should be ashamed of themselves. This import dependency has simply gone too far and radical action is needed to address the matter. Personally, I would turn off the oil taps and ban all imports to force the pace of development.
