That Lagos crowd should have blocked the road and insisted that Tinubu commits to attracting this level of foreign direct investment in his first year as president before letting him pass

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Food processing – $20bn
[2] Railways – $15bn
[3] Power generation – $10bn
[4] Automobile assembly plants – $10bn
[5] Steel production – $5bn
[6] Solid mineral processing plants – $5bn
[7] Pharmaceuticals – $5bn
[8] Leather processing – $5bn
[9] Green energy – $5bn
[10] Cosmetics and beauty products – $5bn

If we can attract $85bn in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2023 and then get domestic industrialists to invest a further $15bn in the economy, we should be fine. As things stand today, we are facing a crisis because Chinese overseas investment is slowing down and the Nigerian state no longer has the cash to take out stakes in commercial ventures.

Something simply has to give or Nigeria will collapse beneath our feet. Nigeria’s president has to attract about $85bn worth of investment if he wants to take 90m people out of poverty and end our designation as the poverty capital of the world.

By my calculations, about 30m sustainable and remunerative new jobs must be created to end the current scourge of terrorism, kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry, etc. I would like to see the masterplan.

We must not let Tinubu, Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso get away it this time around. We need clear and coherent policies, that are properly costed and then polished off with details of how the funding to implement them will be raised.