In search of wealth creator as Nigeria’s next president
With every day that passes, it becomes more glaring that the major challenge of the economy of this country is not corruption but wealth creation. Corruption can be fought with systems. The proof of this can simply be seen in the introduction of the Biometric Verification Number (BVN), which today has proven to be more effective than the efforts of our disoriented EFCC and its officials.
The oft-repeated excuse by those in power that they are unable to keep their election campaign promises because they do not have enough resources to work with is an outright expression of disabled mindsets and this is no longer acceptable as we seek to select who leads us come 2019. If you cannot deliver what you promised, then you have no business wanting to continue in office. Which country has enough resources?
Until we tell ourselves and accept the bitter truth that what we need at the top leadership of this country are wealth creators in government managing the affairs and not wealth sharers, the country may never make any meaningful progress.
The United Nations in a study has a forecast that Nigeria will be the third most populous country by 2050. And without doubt, the country cannot sustain this population boom with the current economic regime and style of governance.
We have poor “Wealth Creation Structures” and poor income distribution mechanisms. The current structures we have guarantee poverty, unsustainable national revenue and a future that may not be viable. Experts have said that even if our current wealth is not stolen, the per capita income is meagre and not useful. It does not guarantee any reasonable quality of life. Our current wealth left intact, will do little to stop Nigerians from dying from hunger, maternal complications, insecurity, avoidable deaths and unemployment. We need a paradigm shift.
Our experience as a nation has shown that because most of the leaders do not know how to create wealth themselves, they end up mismanaging whatever they meet on ground. How do you expect a man who has never created wealth to suddenly become a good manager of huge resources?
Pathetically, those who call themselves our leaders only get involved in managing wealth which they had little input into how it was created. And because they were not involved in the creation, they rarely appreciate it. Hence, they turn out as either bad managers or killers of the greater Nigerian dream.
Every part of Nigeria has enough wealth to sustain it. What is lacking is the leadership with the required capacity and vision to tap and manage the wealth and make it work on behalf of all.
The state this country is today, it is glaring to all that what we now need are people who are entrepreneurs, who started companies; employed Nigerians to work there; and have been running it successfully. We need to know those who have the competence to do that beyond mere political gimmicks.
Nigeria moved from 25 per cent unemployment to 40 per cent. Five million Nigerians lost their jobs last year. Our joblessness has increased from about 13.5 per cent to over 22 per cent. This should be our worry not who is coming to continue the next stage of the drama.
The economy and wealth creation cannot be driven by packs of political propaganda as being dished out to us by the current operators of governments. We need to change the conversation. Election is coming now and the question we should ask is: who among the bunch of those aspiring to lead the nation has what it takes to not only create wealth but to turn around the economic fortunes of this country? How many of us in this country know the background of all these people who are now joggling for the Presidency? Nobody knows where they are coming from. So we need to know what they are doing. We need to know what they have done on their own to be able to say, we can entrust them because we need a careful, concerted and consensus driven strategy by someone, a “man wey sabi the road” to make the country richer and provide employment for our army of young people.
The future of Nigeria is about entrepreneurship, job/wealth creation and the entire economy and this is where Atiku Abubakar stands out from the bunch. It is clear now to everybody that mere propaganda does not translate into economic wellbeing/fortunes and wealth. The days of docile leaders are over. We need economic leaders that have political capital. We need a leader that can expedite the necessary political actions that will drive wealth creation.
Many Nigerians can at least look at the tangible things he has achieved and say, if nothing else, this man is obviously different from these other ones. He built a primary school, a secondary school and a university in Yola, when he had opportunity of building it in Lagos or Abuja. He has an idea of education.
He has five factories in his home state of Adamawa and one in Abuja. Intels, another of his investment interests, stands today as one of the highest employers of labour in the Niger Delta even above some oil producing and servicing companies operating in the area. So we can say boldly that he has an idea of business.
As at today, Atiku’s conglomerate of business and investment interests is the single highest employer of labour in Adamawa State even above the state government. We can also say he has ideas on how to create jobs and employment.
And this is where most Nigerians believe Atiku is preferred above every other person joggling to lead this country in 2019 including the incumbent president. Let them come with their testimonials for us to assess! God bless Nigeria. Izeze wrote Harcourt this piece from Port