Despite the fears many southern Nigerians might have, the country actually needs to merge with Niger Republic if we want to develop

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) Many Nigerians continuously wonder how the country is going to get out of its current morass as our national output is about only 10% of what we need to sustain our economy. For me there is only one solution and that is unprecedented industrialisation and the mass production of goods and services. If we grow our economy from the current $400bn to say $4trn, we are home and dry

(2) Now ask yourselves if there is enough room for massive industrial parks, gigantic solar farms, huge wildlife sanctuaries, etc in Nigeria. One of the reasons why we are having this herdsmen crisis is because of increasing urbanisation. We basically no longer have the land to accommodate their cattle routes, hence why they need to start building ranches

(3) To make matters worse, by 2050, Nigeria is set to be the third most populous nation on earth behind China and India with a population of 400m. Our current land mass of
923,768 km2 is simply inadequate to accommodate both the population growth and the required economic expansion, so something drastic needs to be done

(4) Niger Republic has a landmass of
1,267,000 km2. If we combined the two countries, we would have a total area of about 2.2m square kilometres. That would put us on a par with say DR Congo and Algeria, providing unprecedented potential for economic expansion

(5) Before we merge with Niger Republic though, I think we have to first incorporate Benin Republic and Cameroon into our federation. Benin Republic for all intents and purposes is already part of Nigeria anyway, so there is no justification for her being a separate nation

(6) Cameroon is already tearing itself apart and were Nigeria a forward-thinking nation, we would have plans to address the matter. Merging Nigeria and Cameroon will provide a unique solution to the ongoing Francophone/Anglophone tension in the country

(7) What I have in mind is a united Federal Republic of Songhai with a total landmass of about 2.78m square kilometres. It will make us the eighth largest nation by landmass on earth behind Russia, China, Canada, America, Brazil, Australia and India. It will actually be relatively sparsely populated as even with the other three countries joining us by 2050, our population will not exceed 480m

(8) Of all the component parts of Songhai, Niger Republic excites me the most as it is 80% desert. Among the things we can do there is build the world’s largest solar farm, construct a pipeline connecting it to the Mediterranean to turn 80% of the Sahara into lush farmland, open the world’s largest cattle ranch there, build an unprecedented wildlife sanctuary that will make the Serengeti look like child’s play, open some massive agricultural prairies as the land will be uninhabited and above construct new industrial towns just as the Russians did with Tankograd

(9) Any fears that this could lead to a Fulani invasion of Nigeria are unfounded as the total population of Niger Republic is only 22m. In any case, Cameroon’s population is 25m and that of Benin Republic is 11m, so they will counter-balance and fears people have in this regard

(10) When you look at the Cameroonian tropical rain forest area, the Sahara desert and the ports of Cotonou and Douala we will be getting from this merger, you will find out that it is arguably the greatest act of poverty eradication in the history of mankind. Yes, we will have a few ethnic issues but I am glad that we now have an Amotekun regional government structure that can be used as a template going forward to combat over-centralisation, ethnic tensions and this senseless need to dominate others. If anything, this development will kick northern Nigeria out of its current coma