With China cutting back on its borrowing, President Buhari needs to set very ambitious foreign direct investment targets for 2021

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 FDI in 2021 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. President Buhari 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.