We need a Nigerian Industrial Army: Should we introduce special labour camps for irredeemable criminals as part of this drive to raise industrial output?

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) It maybe just me but over the last two months or so, I appear to get the impression that the penny has dropped with the Nigerian elite that the way out of poverty is to boost industrial output. We have sent a group of engineers to China to learn how to manufacture transformers, have asked the Russians to come take over Ajaokuta to start producing steel and have closed our borders to protect domestic production

(2) I wait to see which state governors will build on this and do the unthinkable by bringing several multinationals into their states to start manufacturing goods. For instance, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is discussing with Chinese shoe firms about opening plants in Abia. We need that in every one of our 36 states to get Nigeria off her knees

(3) I like the fact that Bata has agreed to open a shoe factory in Abuja and the fact we are discussing building a Lagos to Calabar railway line to move people, goods and services across our Atlantic coastline as quickly as possible. It appears to be accepted that with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $375bn and a paltry budget of $28bn we are whistling in the wind. With such a weak economic base, we are always going to be the poverty capital of the world with a population of 200m. No matter how much noise we make, unless we at least double both figures, we are just trumpeting incoherent nonsense like the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel

(4) This week, President Buhari is attending an investment summit in Saudi Arabia. We should insist that he brings back nothing less than $1bn in investment. We have all seen what Islamic Finance has been used for in Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar, Turkey, etc. If they are successfully attracting Islamic Finance and using it to build railway lines, new cities, skyscrapers, shopping malls, etc, so too can we. If Nigeria cannot attract that kind of investment then we have no business attending their summits

(5) No matter how much investment we attract though, it will amount to nothing unless we start to mass produce manufactured goods and sell them. About 78m Nigerians live in absolute poverty. We have to manufacture our way out of this with industrial estates in each of our 774 local government areas. Anything else is just cosmetic

(6) If we want to be honest with ourselves, Nigeria cannot afford the luxury of organic growth. We need to force the pace of industrialisation by churning out industrial goods at a faster-than-normal rate. We have an abnormal economy with abnormal problems so we need to come up with abnormal solutions. I think we need to make use of our hardened and irredeemable criminals and turn them into the Nigerian Industrial Army

(7) Is there any reason why we should not open specialist labour camps in unique locations like Sambisa Forest to accelerate production? China is currently doing it and they are churning out millions of tonnes of goods by the minute

(8) I ask the moral question. Is there any reason whatsoever why the following should not be converted into the Nigerian Industrial Army? How about anyone convicted of the following being sent to a labour prison camp to produce vitally needed industrial goods:
(i) Boko Haram fighters
(ii) Murderous cattle herdsmen
(iii) Kidnappers
(iv) Armed robbers
(v) Zamfara bandits
(vi) Thugs who carry out political assassinations
(vii) Ritual killers
(viii) Politicians convicted of corruption
(ix) Human traffickers
(x) Arms smugglers

(9) Basically, we will be recycling our garbage and putting it to productive use. It is naive of us to think that the solutions to our problems are easy. I for one am prepared to take unpopular decisions for the long term good of the nation. If 1m scraps of vermin die in our labour camps each year but successfully manufacture 1m solar panels a year, I think that is a result

(10) We need to ask ourselves the hard question. In this instance, does the end justify the means. Throughout history, we have seen how forced labour was used to build the pyramids of Egypt and how the practise continues today in China. Is it morally justifiable given the fact that in Nigeria it will lift about 100m people out of poverty?