Were I in President Buhari’s shoes, my 61st anniversary present to Nigeria would be to put a 10-man economic emergency team together

Ayo Akinfe

Its members would be:

[1] Yemi Osinbajo - Chair

[2] Zainab Ahmed - Vice chair

[3] Lamido Sanusi

[4] Charles Soludo

[5] Kingsley Moghalu

[6] Pat Utomi

[7] Arunma Oteh

[8] Yewande Sadiku

[9] Godwin Emefiele

[10] Adeniyi Adebayo

Its mandate would be simple:

[1] You make all economic and investment decisions and bring them to the cabinet for approval. All submissions should be in the form of legislative bills

[2] By 2025, the share of petroleum export receipts as a proportion of federal government revenue must fall from the current 90% to 60%

[3] To achieve this you must prepare a Nigerian Federating Units Economic Bill that will dismantle the current unitarist structure. It must be signed into law by November 30 2021 at the latest

[4] By 2024, Nigeria must enjoy double digit gross domestic product (GDP) growth as a result of diversified economic activity

[5] Draw up legislation that will make 10% annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth the norm. Any year in which we have single digit economic growth should be regarded as Nigeria being in recession

[6] Draft legislation that will enable the National Assembly to declare a state of emergency in any state of the federation that fails to generate its internal running costs by 2024. Failure to do this over four successive quarters should generate statutory impeachment proceedings against the governor

[7] Ensure that by 2030 we have a 90% literacy rate

[8] Create dedicated financial packages that will allow banks to offer zero interest loans for several ring fenced sectors of the economy. These include agriculture, food processing, steel production, power generation and distribution, manufacturing, etc

[9] Turn one state into a major tourist attraction as part of a “Nigeria is Open For Business” programme

[10] Initiate talks with neighbouring nations about amalgamating. However we look at it, Nigeria’s landmass is insufficient to cater for the fact that by 2050, she will be the third most populous nation on earth. We need to expend our land mass or we will just choke, suffocate and perish under the weight of our population growth