Oluseun Onigbinde/
If we want a GREAT Nigeria, we can’t avoid the questions.
What will Nigeria sell to the world in large quantities apart from oil? When will Nigeria’s foreign exchange fluctuation and economy swings be no longer linked to oil?
What’s the future of manufacturing in Nigeria? With Nigeria’s large population, the easiest way to put unskilled people to work is to expand manufacturing. How will this be managed with threats of automation and robots?
What’s the fate of our education system? How can we reinvent our education system to harness our best and also provide competitive skills to our youth? How can Nigeria build a technical base of talents on a large scale?
How does every Nigerian have access to quality healthcare? What should be a standard PHCs, the escalation process to secondary and tertiary institutions? When will a Nigerian stop dying of lack of oxygen, blood and diagnostic equipment?
How do we stop the radical migration of our doctors as well as our professionals who are losing hope in their dream of Nigeria?
Nigeria has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP in the world. This means it’s either the people aren’t wealthy, the wealthy aren’t paying enough or there isn’t a holistic method of tax collection. How do we resolve this?
How do we resolve the question – Who is a Nigerian? It’s said anyone with a black face can bribe an immigration officer to get our passport. How do we account for every Nigeria? How do we get every Nigerian a single user ID?
Our power system is in crisis. The gas infrastructure is inadequate, the power plants are poorly sited, the national grid is weak and over-centralized, opacity in DISCO operations and poor collection mechanism. What’s the way to 15,000MW steady distribution?
When will Nigeria demolish the FAAC template as we know it? How can our states be competitive if they are meant to appear in Abuja for monthly share? How can competition among states be incentivised?
What’s the fate of NNPC? A National Oil Company with conflicting roles. When will Nigeria set an agenda for its oil industry with the passage of PIB/PIGB/etc?
When will NNPC become just another oil company paying taxes and dividends?
When will Nigerians possess the full technical expertise to build roads, rail and industry? When will the fundamentals of Nigeria industry be resolved through investment in skills? How long will Nigeria always wait to monetise a barrel of oil before it can construct a road?
What will Nigeria do with the strength of its diaspora? You have skilled people all over the world but unlike the Chinese or Indians, you deliberately do nothing about them?
When will public office be about service not opaque allowances of legislators, discretionary security votes and abuse of institutions by the Executive?
When will be impossible for a public officer to steal because every institution is alive to put him/her in check?
How do we secure Nigeria with an overstretched security force, increasingly serving a small elite.
How can we boost community intelligence systems, escalation systems and also ensure state policing without being prone to abuse?
What’s the way out of farmers-herdsmen conflicts and rural banditry? How do we escape the Boko Haram trap and the large pool of potential recruits in our employed youth?
How does public spending become transparent and fully accounted for? How will our procurement process be simplified for small business to participate or are we to continue with current opaque box-ticking exercise?
How about our music, movies and arts? What makes it more global? What makes it greater in terms of quality and revenue take?
Why will anyone want to come to Nigeria for tourism? What will our reception desk (airport) look like?
Where exactly will they go and how do we build experiences out of Nigeria?
How will Nigeria be a magnet for foreign investment? When is our true hype coming because the world accepts we have found our North star?
How will Nigeria’s political system throw up its best with the capacity, competence and character to deliver greatness for its people?
When will an average Nigerian get access to credit to expand business, a decent 9-5 worker have access to long-term mortgage and ramp up occupancy in Lekki and Maitama?
Finally, what’s the long term vision for Nigeria that accepts our diversity and potential for growth? These things won’t happen in 4-8 years. How will every Nigerian leader be disciplined to stay through a single mission of a secure Nigeria with shared prosperity?
You are free to add more. We can continue on this path of gradualism or a few roads and rail, incremental power and payment of salaries.
But if we want a great Nigeria, there are HARD questions to be answered.
•Onigbinde tweeted this article with the handle: @seunonigbinde
