Etim EtimI woke up this morning with a heavy heart. Nigeria is on my mind. The country has become very poor in recent years. total FX proceeds from crude oil exports expected in 2025 is just about $22 billion. Dangote Group expects to earn $30 billion in the same year. can you imagine? A country of over 200 million people depending on $22 billion? We are indeed a very poor country. But why?
Because politics has become the most lucrative business in the country. The only thing young people pursue is political appointments; not business opportunities as was the case after the civil war and all through the 1980s and 1990s.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelSince 1999, our government has abandoned the promotion of non-export drives. The emphasis is now on sharing political patronage foodstuffs. How can the federal government of Nigeria be focused on importing rice and sharing it to the states? What happened to previous initiatives on food self-sufficiency?
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In the 1980s, the Association of Nigerian Exporters (ANE) was a proud group of non-oil exporters of all sort of non-oil goods. In those days, commercial banks had Export Desks to fund export businesses. There were incentives for those who repatriated their export proceeds. Agencies like the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) were up and doing in encouraging exports of non-oil goods. The IBB regime set up the Raw Materials Research Council to develop local raw materials as substitutes to imported ones.
Why did we abandon all those efforts?
The Buhari administration made commendable efforts in driving domestic production of rice and other grains. It recorded some successes, I must say. Today, those initiatives have been abandoned and we are back to the era of full-scale rice importation. Why?
The drastic reduction in domestic food production largely due to insecurity is the main reason for the hardship and hunger in the land. Yet, there is no authentic programme from the government to fix this problem. I saw in the news the other day that some Black farmers in the US were given $2 billion by the Biden administration because they could not access bank loans. Serious nations take farming seriously. Every nation subsidizes agriculture very seriously because food security has become a national security issue. But here, we have scrubbed the Anchor Borrowers Programme which used to be a funding programme to support farming. What have we replaced the ABP with?
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Meantime, the most important news from the State House these days is the release of list of political appointments! The Nigerian government celebrates political appointments with the same gusto with which other nations celebrate scientific breakthroughs. Mind you, I have nothing against political appointments and political appointees, but any nation whose politics is more lucrative than entrepreneurship is doomed!
I just wanted to unburden my mind. I will speak more on this in due course. Thank you.
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