10 industrial goods Nigeria should use this Covid-19 hiatus to mass-produce and flood the global market with

Ayo Akinfe

(1) A modern day molue that is electric, comes with air conditioning and costs about half the price of a competitive bus

(2) Flatscreen TVs that you can hang on the wall like clocks

(3) All-in-one iPads and mobile phone sets

(4) A combined microwave/toaster

(5) Tinned jollof rice packs that can rival Heinz baked beans

(6) Rain-proof agbadas

(7) Head ties that open up as umbrellas when you want them to

(8) Insulated Isiagu attires that self-inflate and can turn into overcoats, preventing the need to take a coat out with you

(9) Air conditioned bus stop booths that are portable and installed anywhere on earth

(10) All-in-one cement, gravel and sand mixed packs that can halve production costs

This is the kind of innovative thinking required to get us out of our current debacle. I am waiting for someone to tell me how else we can turn the corner by any other way than manufacturing.

Just look at the problems:

(1) There are 90m Nigerians living in abject poverty
(2) We have 350m illegal arms in the country
(3) Our economy is set to shrink by 9% this year
(4) Nobody is buying our crude oil which accounts for 90% of government revenue
(5) Oil prices are about $40 a barrel when Nigeria needs them to be $100 a barrel
(6) We no longer have the foreign exchange to import our needs
(7) Our population is growing at a rate of 2.6% per annum
(8) About a quarter of our budget goes on debt servicing
(9) Foreign direct investment has all but ceased
(10) There is a total breakdown of law and order with banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism being the order of the day

Nigeria needs a genius at its helm if we are to combat all these ills within a decade. We need to be prepared to think the unthinkable and do the impossible if we want to get out of this rut.

From what I can see, that message is yet to sink in. My people are under the illusion that it can be business as usual.