With the total collapse in oil prices Nigeria’s evangelical clergymen need to bail us out by forming a company called Jesus to the Rescue PLC to power our economy

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) Everyone is in a state of panic after crude oil futures prices fell to below $0 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) yesterday. Although the market will correct itself over the coming days, we are probably looking at a price of $10 a barrel for the rest of 2020

(2) Now, according to Opec, it costs Nigeria about $30 to produce a barrel of crude oil, so if petroleum sells for anything less than $31 a barrel we are producing at a loss. Being a mono-economy, this basically means that for the rest of 2020, the Nigerian government will have little or no revenue

(3) With tax only accounting for 6% of our gross domestic product (GDP), Nigeria has no default position to fall back on. Unlike other Opec producers who have diversified into other areas, have massive foreign reserves and have amassed war chests through taxation, for us, without oil, we have no economy

(4) So, the first way of this crisis is for Nigerians to stop shouting government, government, government. There is no revenue coming in so the government has no spend. Getting out of this quagmire will require a private sector redemption plan

(5) One of Nigeria’s biggest problems is that she lacks a robust local capitalist, enterprueneral, investor bourgeoisie class who can invest in the economy and create say 2m jobs within six months. Most of her millionaires are either traders, politicians or government cronies who have benefited from juicy state contracts

(6) If you look back over the last five years, only Aliko Dangote can be described as an industrialist. His $20bn Lekki refinery is the exception to the rule in Nigeria. In economically stable countries, you have hundreds of Dangote’s who are creating jobs on that scale on a daily basis

(7) Now, the one exception to this rule in Nigeria are our evangelical clergymen. For me, they are our most astute businessman and enterprueners. They have devised a clever way of taxing the population of 10% of their earnings and have subsequently built up a war chest. Nigeria needs them more than ever before now

(8) Our government is not sitting on a war chest of tithes, so cannot afford to open factories, processing plants, manufacturing facilities, build power plants, railway networks, etc. Even if the government did, it lacks the expertise to run such commercial entities. As things stand today, the only group of Nigerians with that kind of economic clout are the evangelical clergymen

(9) I would ask all our general overseers including the likes of Enoch Adeboye, Chris Oyakhilome, David Oyedepo, Suleiman, Temitope Joshua, Kris Okotie, Matthew Ashimolowo, Ayo Oritsejafor, Johnson Suleiman, etc to meet tomorrow and agree to combine all their operations into one. Name this conglomerate Jesus to the Rescue PLC and immediately register this company with the Corporate Affairs Commission. I want to see Jesus to the Rescue PLC investing in job creation starting from next week

(10) Just do the arithmetic and see how dependent we are on these evangelical churches. The average Nigerian salary is N205,000 ($550) per month. There are about 100m Christians in Nigeria, maybe about a quarter of who pay tithes. If 25m people pay 10% of £550 a month ($55), that is $1.3bn. Basically, the evangelical churches can raise $15bn for investment annually. Only Dangote can really match that. Nigeria needs her general overseers more than ever at this moment in time. Please come to our rescue oooo!