With 61% of Nigerians in the US over 25 holding a first degree we have a potential foreign direct investment goldmine which needs to be tapped into with a robust programme that looks like this

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria's federal government needs to set them a foreign direct investment (FDI) target of about $5bn a year

[2] All this diaspora investment needs to be protected by the Local Content Act, which guarantees duty-free access to the Nigerian economy

[3] As a starting point, we should offer a tax holiday to all those disaffected American businesses who may leave the country, especially those of Latino descent. Argentina and Australia for instance built their economies after War World Two by attracting skilled German labour.

[4] Our first point of call should be the Nigerian diaspora in the US. We should offer them housing, maybe subsidised schooling for the kids and interest-free car loans, so they can return to Abuja.

[5] All those skilled Mexican migrants and Latinos in the US should be given fast track Nigerian citizenship. Many of them have skills which Nigeria desperately needs at the moment as she seeks to diversify her economy

[6] All those skilled Muslim refugees from Syria should be welcome to Nigeria. They come from a climatic environment similar to what prevails in Borno State and I think they are ideal to help redevelop the state as we seek to rebuild it on the back of the Boko Haram insurgency.

[7] China is soon to be the next global power. Most economic commentators believe it will overtake the US as the world's largest economy soon. Nigeria should be prepared to join the groovy train as it appears we are witnessing a major change of guard here. We should be looking to embrace Chinese citizens wanting to take out Nigerian citizenship

[8] Empires rise and fall. Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, the British empire, etc all had their time. Making Nigeria a multinational and multi-ethnic nation is a must to drive forward, so I think we should despatch our trade and industry minister to the US immediately to start wooing potential investors and disaffected Americans.

[9] Given that about half of the population of Borno State is currently based in Maiduguri, I think we have a great basis for industrialising the state and can kill two birds with one stone here. President Buhari should encourage the Borno State governor to keep the displaced people in Maiduguri. For starters, going from being a rural dweller to an urban settler represents progress. Getting people to live in an urban environment will elevate their level of thinking and enhance their exposure. It also represents retrogression going from an urban dweller to a rural peasant. It is also easier to provide social amenities like water, schools, electricity, roads, sewage plants, hospitals, salination plants, etc in urban centre. We can then get US operators in the manufacturing, steel and solid minerals sector to build plants in Maiduguri, wooing them with incentives like tax holidays, access to the local market, etc. Our slogan should be - One IDP, one factory worker!

[10] We could then use all this abandoned space to for instance build a huge game reserve, making Borno State the tourism capital of Nigeria. We can woo investors and give them support to could import animals like camels, lions, zebras, leopards, crocodiles, lions, baboons, giraffes, rhino, hippos, elephants, etc and create something similar to South Africa's Kruger National Park. We could also then woo big industrial agricultural operators to build massive plantations in all this abandoned farmland, turning Borno State into one huge agricultural prairie