Nigeria has no choice other than to manufacture her way out of the current economic crisis as the US did after the bombing of Pearl Harbour

Ayo Akinfe

[1] O’Level economics teaches us all that inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. There is always a simple solution to the problem, which is quadruple the production of consumer goods and you reverse the trend

[2] Historically, we have a precedence for this sort of emergency manufacturing and production explosion and in 1941, the Americans did the unthinkable after the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the declaration of war on Japan

[3] After war was officially declared, President Franklin Roosevelt invited the chairmen of the three major US automobile companies to the White House in December 1941 and gave them production quotas to fulfil. You know what, they all met these targets within a year

[4] Totally unprepared for war, lacking military equipment and not having any armaments manufacturer who could equip a modern army, President Roosevelt knew he was in big trouble as the US was at war with Japan and Germany that had spent the last 10 years arming themselves to the teeth

[5] Knowing he had zero chance of winning this war against the industrial armies of Japan and Germany, President Roosevelt summoned William Knudsen, the president of General Motors, Henry Ford, the president of Ford Motors and Kaufman Keller, the president of Chrysler to the White House for a make-or-break meeting and read them the riot act

[6] President Roosevelt told them in plain language that they had to turn their factories into war machines or the US would be crushed. These three gentlemen did not disappoint him as they delivered big time

[7] It took the US automobile industry 18 months to get up and running but when they did, they out-produced everybody else by such a gulf that there was only going to be one winner in the war. General Motors became the largest military contractor on earth, manufacturing 119,562,000 shells, 206,000 aircraft engines, 97,000 bombers, 301,000 aircraft propellers, 198,000 diesel engines, 1,900,000 machine guns and 854,000 military trucks.

[8] Chrysler had never made tanks before but the company built a factory from scratch. Known as the Detroit Tank Arsenal, this Chrysler plant made roughly as many tanks during the war than all the Nazi factories combined

[8] For its part, Ford, which became the nation’s third largest military contractor. It built a production facility called Willow Run, the largest factory under one roof in the history of the world, churning out 18,482 B-24 Liberators bombers. So many labourers worked at Willow Run, the government had to build a city from scratch to house them. It was named Bomber City, providing the workforce with homes and infrastructure near the factory

[9] Nigeria finds herself in a similar war situation today. President Bola needs some chief executives he can call to Aso Rock and ask them to fill the vacuum by manufacturing 2m tractors, 5m electricity transformers, six 10,000MW power plants, 500,000 railway carriages, 200m tonnes of processed foods, 100m tonnes of clothing materials, etc to save Nigeria

[10] Unfortunately, 64 years after independence, there are no such industrialists and manufacturers a Nigerian president can call on. Nigeria's rich made their money shamelessly importing finished products and distributing them, looting government funds or getting government contracts. Is our problem really bad political leadership?