A Private Sector Powered Development is Best for Nigeria
By Nick Agule
The presidential spokesman is here making the same mistake that previous governments have made, which has left Nigeria’s development stunted – the thinking that it is governments’ budget that will develop Nigeria.
The budgets of the 3 tiers of government in Nigeria are too miniscule to develop Nigeria.
What is needed is for the Govt to create the enabling environment to attract private sector investments to develop Nigeria’s infrastructure. We did it in telecoms, and over $100bn has so far been invested by the telecoms operators in Nigeria.
We need to recreate the success in telecoms in the power sector, domestic gas, refining, steel, railways, agriculture, roads, etc.
The one thing we must get right to turn Nigeria into a huge construction site powered by the private sector is to “run Nigeria with the rule of law.”
“Rule of law” means nobody is above the law. Without the “rule of law”, our foreign trips to attract investors won’t yield significant dividends.
We now live in a globalised world where capital is floating globally and makes a landfall where there’s “rule of law*. We also live in the info-age, and investors know much more about our economy than we think, and once we begin to cleanse our house with the *rule of law,” they will invite themselves to come to Nigeria and invest. It’s global capital that has developed the likes of Dubai.
There’s a need for a paradigm shift in the thinking of government as represented here by a spokesman.
