President Buhari has just arrived in New York for a United Nations summit. He should make it clear to the General Assembly that they have to take the following steps if they want to avoid another Afghanistan in Nigeria

Ayo Akinfe

[1] First of all, he should let the whole world know that Nigeria is not Afghanistan where what happens remains local. Whenever anything happens in Nigeria, it has continental implications. If Iswap or Boko Haram seize power in Nigeria, there will be a massive domino effect across Africa. They ignore Nigeria at their peril

[2] Nigeria desperately needs to be self-sufficient in arms production. Why has no armament manufacturer not opened a facility in Nigeria? As things stand, Nigeria cannot defend herself

[3] What I find totally unacceptable is that Britain knew where Nigeria was when it was time to colonise here but there has never been one British naval shipyard in Nigeria. How could Britain be the world's biggest maritime power and Nigeria have an 830km Atlantic coastline but not one shipyard was established there. This needs to be corrected today

[4] There are 10.3m Nigerian kids out of school, about 70m Nigerians living below the poverty line and about 32.2m internally displaced persons ion Nigeria. It is either the international community invests in Nigeria to create jobs for these people or they join terrorist organisations like Iswap and Boko Haram

[5] At the very least, Nigeria needs $50bn in foreign direct investment annually. The United Nations Security Council should mandate the Fortune Global 500 list of Companies to meet this. If they do not, their home governments should tax them and hand the money over to investors willing to invest in Nigeria

[6] Nigeria currently accounts for 2.64% of the world's population. She should thus account for at least 2.5% of the global tourist industry valued at about $9trn. Holiday companies must be compelled to out Nigeria on their list of travel destinations and then make the necessary investment to bring the facilities there up to scratch

[7] Given that about one in every 40 human beings in Nigerian, the country simply has to account for at least one fortieth of global gross domestic product (GDP) . To achieve this, heavy industry must be compelled to invest in steel, manufacturing, machine tool production, aircraft, automobile, railway carriage etc manufacturing in Nigeria

[8] Global GDP is forecast to hit $89trn in 2021 as we come out of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, Nigeria's fair share of that is about $2.3trn. We simply cannot stay afloat with a meager GDP of $375bn and a paltry budget of $33bn. The United Nations General Assembly has to ringfence certain large countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Russia, etc and compel the rest of the world to ensure they get their fair share of global wealth. If not, we all know the consequences will be dire

[9] It is no accident that the Taliban found a safe haven in Pakistan. We have to ask ourselves why their cells were not operational in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Indonesia or any other growing Muslim nation. Poverty breeds religious extremism. If the global community does no come to the air of Nigeria, they have no moral right to complain when Al-Queida and Isis set up camp there

[10] President Buhari should refuse to leave the UN without at least $10bn in firm investment pledges. Areas like power, steel, aluminium, pharmaceuticals and rail are the urgent priorities.

Share