Akinwumi Adesina’s keynote address at Yakubu Gowon’s 90th birthday

Your Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, President of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, ably represented by Senator George Akume, CON, Secretary of the Government of the Federation.

Your Excellency, General Yakubu Gowon, GCFR, former Head of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – the celebrant.

Your Excellency, Mrs. Victoria Gowon, “Field Marshall”, former First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Your Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Special Guest of Honor.

Your Excellency, President “Baba” Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Your Excellency, Arch. Namadi Sambo, GCON, former Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Dr. Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, Chairman of the Lecture.

Former Senate President, Distinguished Senators and Honorable Members of the National Assembly (present and past).

Your Excellency, Omar Alieu Touray, President of ECOWAS Commission. Your Excellencies, Executive Governors, past and present.
Honorable Ministers, past and present.

Our fathers, lord’s spiritual and temporal (Royal Highnesses).

Professor Jerry Ghana, Chairman of the National Planning Committee for the events commemorating the 90th birthday of His Excellency, General Gowon.

Eminent Guests, Distinguished ladies and gentlemen. And of course, my dear beautiful wife, Grace, Yemisi. And the amazing National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Good afternoon!
It is a great honor to have been asked by His Excellency General Gowon and Mrs. Gowon and invited by the eminent members of the national planning committee, to deliver the keynote lecture today.

I am filled with a very deep sense of appreciation given the significance of this august occasion; and sincerely humbled by the privilege of being here to celebrate – along with friends, family, and fraternal associates from far and wide – the 90th Birthday of one of Nigeria’s greatest Statesmen, a revered leader, and a father of the nation, His Excellency General Yakubu Gowon, GCFR.

I wish to congratulate His Excellency on his epoch making 90th birthday. I would also like to extend my congratulations to your ever beautiful, elegant, poised, wise, and never-ageing wife, Mummy Victoria Gowon, and to your dear family.

General, you remain the youngest person ever to become the Head of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. At the incredibly young age of 31, responsibility for the affairs of this great nation were thrust upon your shoulders.

You married your sweetheart, the radiantly beautiful Victoria Hansatu Zakari, at the age of 34. She was 23.
And what a day it was!

The image of both of both of you walking resplendently down the aisle of Christ Church Cathedral, Lagos, is still etched in the minds of those of us old enough to remember.

Permit me to go down memory lane, General Gowon.

My favorite image of you, is riding in the royal carriage beside the British Monarch, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during a State visit to the United Kingdom, as you waved to an adoring crowd with your impeccably white gloves.

It was an unprecedented reception and one reserved for exceptional global leaders of that era. The news and images went viral globally, even though digital and social media did not exist at the time.
I knew right then that Nigeria was destined for global greatness.

It is extremely hard to believe that that young and incredibly handsome military officer with a thin moustache and Head of State and Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is now 90 years old.

Along with all your well-wishers here today, I salute you General! Hearty congratulations once again!
You were an exemplary Nigerian and African leader. As Head of State, your leadership was marked by several firsts.

Your visionary leadership led to the creation of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS), bringing together all 16 countries in the region, for economic and political cooperation.

You created the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), the only policy decision in the history of Nigeria that has endured all governments, a pointer to your remarkable vision and confidence in the youth and Nigeria’s unity.

As a recognition of the beauty and richness of our cultural diversity, and ahead of the first ever Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), you commenced the construction of the National Theater, now named the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts. Your fingerprints can still be seen in countless lasting infrastructure developments across Nigeria.

I can keep listing your endless achievements. The bottom line is that, Leaders are not to be ululated; leaders are to be emulated.

General Gowon, you are to be emulated! Emulated for your candor and nationalistic fervor.
Emulated for your humility and ability to work with everyone. Emulated for your never-ending drive to unify the country.
Emulated for your never-failing Nigeria Prays. Emulated for always having Nigeria in your heart!
The acronym of your name says it all – “Go On With One Nigeria.”

When General Gowon was told he had been overthrown in a military coup, while attending an OAU Summit in Kampala, Uganda, he was amazingly calm and collected. He was the
embodiment of serene demeanor he was known for, as he walked briskly out of the hall. When asked by reporters what was next, he said, in a few short words, one of his standout statements, “Take care of Nigeria for me.”

What a profound statement to make at the lowest point of one’s career. It was crystal clear even back then that General Yakubu Gowon had transcended self to focus on others.

Nigeria was on his mind and in his heart.

The young army officer with the white gloves had grown to become a leader for Nigerians of all ages, a father of the nation.

Prior to independence in 1960, our nation’s builders had a dream, of a Nigeria that would be the shining light of Africa and indeed the Black race. As the union jack flag was lowered and the green-white-green flag of the newly born nation, Nigeria, was raised on October 1,1960, the whole world knew that the largest Black nation on earth, was making its debut!

As Nigerians, we are often preoccupied with our differences and tend to think of the geographical delineations of our land. One question we do not ask ourselves enough is: What are we supposed to be?

Certainly, Nigeria, 64 years after independence, should not be a developing country. Nigeria should be a developed nation!

As President of the African Development Bank, when I travel around Africa, one issue that often marks conversations is “when will Nigeria develop?” I have listened to several leaders tell me that the rise of Africa depends on the rise of Nigeria.

As the largest Black nation on earth, we carry within us the hopes and aspirations of all Black people in the world.

Yearnings that this nation will become a beacon in the world, and an inspiration that will elevate the whole continent of Africa.

It is therefore time that we start thinking of Nigeria, not in terms of what or where we currently are, or how we currently see ourselves, but rather in terms of the responsibility of history that we must lift all of Africa.

When the Gulf region was to develop, it took Saudi Arabia to set the pace. And today, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, each of these nations have risen to become global giants.

When Europe had to develop, it needed Germany, the United Kingdom and France to spur the growth across the continent.

When Asia had to develop, it took China, Japan, and South Korea, to spark even wider growth from Singapore to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

For Africa to develop, it needs Nigeria to develop faster. History beckons on Nigeria, and we cannot disappoint.
So, I would like to speak to you today about “Building a Global Nigeria.”

From the onset, I want to be clear that I am not here to criticize any government, past or present, but rather to reflect on what we must do collectively to be all that we can be, in the global Comity of nations – a Global Nigeria.

Yes, I dream of a better tomorrow for Nigeria. I refuse to believe that Nigeria will falter or fail.
I believe that Nigeria will overcome, rise, flourish, and shine. I still believe that Nigeria shall be all that it is meant to be!

It was Martin Luther King who said, “History has thrust upon me a responsibility which I cannot turn away.”

Yes, history has thrust on Nigeria a responsibility it cannot turn away. Nigeria must become a global powerhouse. That is our responsibility. A Global Nigeria must start with a poverty free Nigeria.
Today, poverty is extremely pervasive in Nigeria. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as of 2022 estimated that “63% of persons living within Nigeria (133 million people) are multi-dimensionally poor.” It also states that over half of the population of Nigeria “cook with dung, wood, or charcoal, rather than cleaner energy. High deprivations are also apparent nationally in sanitation, healthcare, food security, and housing.”

Poverty is particularly extreme in rural areas where millions of people have been forgotten and abandoned. The gravity of the situation is even worse in Northern Nigeria. The NBS report states further: that “multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72% of the people are poor” compared to 42% of people in urban areas.

As we speak today, 65% of the poor (86 million people) live in the North, while 35% (nearly 47 million) live in the South. The incidence of multidimensional poverty ranges from a low of 27% in Ondo to a high of 91% in Sokoto.

These extremely high levels of poverty have fueled criminality, banditry, kidnappings, and armed robbery. A recent survey of the crime economy in Nigeria shows that the Northwest, Northeast and North Central have been devastated, with kidnappings becoming a default economy.

From schools to farms, markets, towns, villages and communities, the level of suffering, helplessness and abandonment are gutting out hope, and drowning communities and people in despair as economic activities plummet.

Consequently, the criminal economy is upending the real economy of Nigeria.

To address the situation, urgent and comprehensive efforts are needed to restore security, and law and order, to protect lives, property, farmlands and to restore normalcy to traumatized zones, towns, villages, and communities. To stabilize and restore economic fortunes, education, health, social protection, and jobs for youth programs must be prioritized. Simultaneously, we must decisively tackle and reduce the burgeoning numbers of out-of-school children.

A Global Nigeria must be a food secure Nigeria.

The World Food Program estimates that 26.5 million Nigerians currently face acute hunger. This is a situation that is compounded by inflation that has risen to 32.1%. The Nigerian Economic Summit estimates that inflation in Nigeria reached a 28-year high in June of 2024.

The current high level of food insecurity and hunger deserves decisive actions. In the first quarter of 2024, Nigeria’s food import bill hit a 5-year high, at N1.5 trillion. Nigeria’s food import bill topped N7.8 trillion in the past 6 years alone. The African Development Bank Group and partners provided $314 million to Nigeria for emergency food production. This would have produced 4 million metric tons, if the plan had been implemented on time as conceived.

Securing Nigeria’s food supplies requires accelerating local food production, providing farmers with high yielding seeds, the accessibility and affordability of fertilizers, mechanization, and the rapid expansion of irrigation, given the challenges of climate change.

To ensure food security, the Federal Government in conjunction with State Governments, should return to the highly successful Growth Enhancement Scheme and the electronic-wallet scheme that was put in place when I was Minister of Agriculture. Both initiatives delivered high quality seeds and fertilizers to over 15 million farmers, which made food available at relatively low costs across Nigeria.

For purposes of implementation, transparency, and accelerated impact, the Growth Enhancement Scheme and the E-wallet system should be protected by legislation.

To help unleash the potential of the food and agriculture sector, the African Development Bank and its partners are investing over $814 million in the development of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs) in 8 States of the Federation. These will help Nigeria to process and add value to its agricultural commodities and establish critically needed platforms for becoming competitive in global agricultural value chains.

Decisive and sustained efforts are needed to end insecurity, especially to save vast areas of the food belt of Nigeria in the northwest, northeast and middle belt. The deployment of digital surveillance tools, drones, artificial intelligence, and satellite imagery needs to be increasingly used to track and provide intelligence. The development and deployment of farm protection guards and safe food transport corridors are worth developing.

A more secure Nigeria will be a food secure Nigeria. A Global Nigeria must be competitive globally.
Nigeria is losing out on the global drive for competitiveness, in a world that is rapidly being changed via education, digital skills acquisition, and innovations, across all sectors.

The Global Competitiveness Index Rankings for 2022 showed that Nigeria was ranked 114 out of 140 countries globally; and worse, Nigeria ranked well below several other African countries, including South Africa, Seychelles, Botswana and Namibia in Southern Africa; below Senegal and Ghana in West Africa; below Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda in East Africa; and below Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa.

A Global Nigeria must invest heavily in education.

The ability of any nation to globally compete is determined by its human capacity, or talent pools. That is why the greatest investment that Nigeria can make is in education, especially higher education.

It is worth noting that today, China has more than 240 million people with higher education, which is more than the entire population of Nigeria. However, only 7% of Nigeria’s population have had access to higher education. This puts Nigeria in an uncompetitive position with developed countries, where the share of the population with higher education is high, including South Korea, 70%; Canada, 67%; Japan, 66%; Ireland, 63%; Luxembourg, 60%; and UK, 58%.

Nigeria must therefore step up and become an undisputed leader in innovation in Africa and position itself through massive paradigm shifting investments in education, to catch up and bridge the talent divide with developed economies and other emerging market economies.

A Global Nigeria must have globally competitive quality infrastructure. After years of growth, post-independence, industrial development in Nigeria is today constrained by an extremely poor state of transport, ports, and logistics infrastructure. Estimates suggest that it costs $35,000 to export 100 tons of produce from Nigeria compared to just $4,000 from Ghana. About 90% of passenger and freight movements in Nigeria rely on roads, of which only 18% are paved.

Meanwhile, our seaports are gridlocked.

Recently the Financial Times reported that congestion at the port in Lagos has become so bad that it could cost more than $4,000 to truck a container 20 kilometers inland – almost as much as it costs to ship the very same container 12,000 nautical miles from China.

Here, Nigeria can learn from Morocco, where the African Development Bank supported the development of its Tangier-Med port. The port is unique. It is an industrial port complex and platform with over 1,100 companies operating from within it. They collectively exported over € 8 billion worth of goods in 2020.

The port is home to several global companies, including Bosch, Daimler, Huawei, Siemens, and several others. Local companies located at the Tangier-Med, have also allowed Morocco to move up several global value chains, including automobiles, automotive parts, aeronautics, agriculture, food manufacturing, textiles, and logistics. Annually, over 460,000 cars are manufactured in the zone for exports. And more interesting, is that the bulk of workers and employees at the port complex are Moroccans.

I took a walk at the Tangier-Med Port. I saw a well-synchronized maze moving with incredible efficiency. There were no kilometer-long lines of trucks waiting to get into and out of the port.

The takeaway from Morocco’s Tangier-Med port is simply this: Nigeria must move away from the usual gestapo-like approaches of raiding ports, or deploying soldiers to decongest ports, or
having to control vehicular traffic at the ports. There are more sophisticated and efficient ways of doing so.

With a view to creating a Global Nigeria, Nigeria’s focus should not be on decongesting ports but on transforming ports. This must start with cleaning up administrative bottlenecks, most of which are unnecessary with multiple government agencies at the ports, high transaction costs and even blatant extortion, from illegal taxes and “contributions,” that never go into government coffers.

To strongly support Africa’s social and economic growth, the African Development Bank invests heavily in infrastructure. Over the past 8 years alone, we have invested over $55 billion in infrastructure, including roads and highways, transport corridors, seaports, airports, ICT infrastructure and regional power networks.

The African Development Bank has invested $369.2 million in the highway connecting Enugu to Bamenda in Cameroon, a transport corridor that will serve 11 million people. Also, we have
invested $49.5 million in the Lekki Toll Road, easing traffic and lowering transport costs. The Bank is mobilizing support for the development of the railway line connecting Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic.

Of significant note, the African Development Bank has provided $12.6 million to the ECOWAS Commission to support a feasibility study for the Lagos to Abidjan corridor highway. As a bank, we and other institutions will help mobilize $15 billion financing for the corridor, which carries over 80% of trade in the region. When completed, the corridor will enhance transport connections from Nigeria into the rest of the West Africa region, with one stop border posts to facilitate intra- regional trade.

A Global Nigeria must achieve universal access to electricity.

Today, the major challenge facing Nigeria’s manufacturing is the very high cost and unreliability of electricity supply. Load shedding and the inconsistent availability of electrical power have resulted in high and uncompetitive manufacturing costs.
Most Nigerian manufacturing companies self-provide their own energy, with a high dependence on generators, diesel and heavy fuel oil. Their emissions’ contributions make them brown industries, not green industries.

It has been estimated by the IMF that Nigeria loses about $29 billion annually, that is, 5.8% of its GDP, due to a lack of reliable power supply. The report also indicates that Nigerians spend $14 billion per year on generators and fuel.

There is no other way to say it. The lack of electricity is killing Nigerian industries. According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, industries spent N93.1 billion on alternative energy in 2018. Today, no business can survive in Nigeria without generators. Consequently, the abnormal has become normal.

Nigeria has gas and crude oil in abundance. Yet, 86 million people live daily without electricity. Today, Nigeria is the number one country in the world in terms of the total number of people without electricity.

To support Nigeria and other African countries, the African Development Bank invests massively in the continent’s power sector. To support the implementation of Nigeria’s Power Sector Recovery Program, the Bank provided $200 million for the Nigeria Electrification Project, which is designed to fill the country’s electricity access gap. We have also invested $210 million
in the Nigeria Transmission project, to strengthen the grid power evacuation and regional interconnection.

A major component of the African Development Bank’s energy strategy was the launch of the Desert to Power initiative, a $20 billion initiative to provide electricity for 250 million people across 11 countries of the Sahel, including Northern Nigeria. It is expected that Desert to Power will create the world’s largest solar zone. This initiative will draw lessons from successful projects already financed by the Bank, including the Noor Ouarzazate solar PV power project in Morocco, and the Ben Ban solar project in Egypt.

To support the efforts of African countries to achieve universal access to electricity, the President of the World Bank Group, Ajay Banga and I made the decision that the African Development Bank and the World Bank Group will work together to connect 300 million Africans, including Nigerians, to electricity by 2030 – the Mission 300.

A Global Nigeria must be an industrialized Nigeria.

For decades, the share of manufacturing in Nigeria’s GDP has hovered around 7%, as the nation has not been able to extricate itself from a comatose industrial manufacturing sector, that is yet to unleash the fulness of its innovative potential.

This is in sharp contrast to the dynamic and rapid performance of manufacturing in Asian countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia and China.

While Asian countries have focused on the export of manufactured products, Nigeria’s approach has been on import substitution. The manufacturing sector of Nigeria represents only 3% of total revenues from exports, but accounts for 50% of imports in the country. Instead of being forward looking in expanding the share of manufactured goods in its total export revenue, Nigeria focuses on the model of import substitution.

Import substitution, while important, is a very restrictive vision. It looks towards survival, instead of looking to create wealth through greater export markets and value diversification. The result is a manufacturing sector that cannot develop nor compete globally, but limits itself to “survival mode, and not a “global manufacturing growth mode.”

Nigeria must have greater ambitions for its manufacturing sector, by integrating and rapidly moving up global and regional value chains in areas of comparative advantage; by driving greater specialization and competitiveness; and by heavily investing in skills upgrades and human capacity development.

The bottom line is that a well-developed and policy-enabled manufacturing sector, with an export orientation, will spur greater innovation, develop our export market potential, and structurally transform the economy.

Instead of being consumed with the conservation of foreign exchange, the focus should shift to expanding foreign exchange through enhanced export value diversification.

The $20 billion Dangote refinery, the largest single train refinery in the world with a capacity to produce 650,000 barrels of refined petroleum products, per day, is nothing short of a technological marvel. The refinery will reduce Nigeria’s dependence on others, secure national supplies, reduce foreign exchange expenditure, lower fuel prices and create millions of jobs in the country. Nigeria needs more industrial global launching pads like the Dangote refinery.

As Head of State, General Gowon’s national development plan was a masterpiece with industrialization as a pivotal priority, which spurred successive governments. Beginning in the early 1970s, Nigeria instituted an industrial policy to support automobile assembly plants. How proud we were to ride Made in Nigeria Peugeots and Volkswagens. Consumer demand was fueled by auto loans by commercial banks. General Olusegun Obasanjo, as Head of State in 1976, made it mandatory for government officials, across the board to ride made in Nigeria cars. As the Head of state and governors drove ‘Made in Nigeria’ vehicles, there was an initial surge in the assembly of cars, with high local demand for locally made vehicles.

Unfortunately, this was not sustained.

If Nigeria had sustained this drive, it would have become the lead exporter of vehicles in Africa and to the rest of the world, exactly what South Africa has done and become today. Today, Nigeria prides itself as a demand center for vehicles made by others, wasting resources it should have put into building and supporting a strong local automotive industry.

The emergence of Innoson automobile, an indigenous Nigerian company based in Nnewi, Anambra state, is to be highly applauded. Today, Innoson’s fleet includes several options including fuel and electric vehicles, and military grade armored vehicles, which it now exports.

But it will take more than one company to build an industry. The advantages for a sound local automobile industry will be massive: research, technology and innovation, highly skilled engineers and labor force, small and medium sized businesses supplying the automobile value chains, savings from imports, etc.

With the size of its population and market, Nigeria should pursue joint ventures to establish major auto manufacturing industries in the country.

An industrialized Nigeria will be a wealthy and prosperous Nigeria. A nation that should inspire Nigeria to be all that it can be, is Korea.
Korea does not import to consume. It imports what it uses to drive its industrialization. Korea has no steel, so it imports steel and uses it to become the world’s largest builder and exporter of cargo and passenger ships. Korea has no oil or natural gas; it relies on the import of crude oil and gas. It uses that gas to power its economy and drive industries.

Korea has leveraged the import of electric machinery to become one of the largest exporters of cars in the world. Korea’s major car manufacturers (Hyundai, Kia, Renault Korea, Daewoo etc.) exported 2.8 million cars in 2023 to 198 countries. In the first quarter of 2024, Korea exported $37 billion worth of cars. That is 67% of Nigeria’s crude oil export per year — all in just one quarter!

As a result, Korea is an industrialized economy and one of the largest exporters in the world. Its exports in 2023 were $623 billion.

Nigeria’s import is for consumption, not for industrialization. Nigeria’s export in 2023 was a mere $57 billion of which crude oil accounts for $52 billion. Paradoxically, for decades Nigeria has exported crude oil and imported petrol and finished petroleum products.

The resultant impact on economic divergence is stark.

Take poverty for instance: Just 2% of Koreans live in poverty. Yet, today, the number of Nigerians living in poverty is 88.4 million people or 40% of the population. That is 1.69 times the population of Korea.

And what about per capita income? The per capita income of Korea is US$ 34,164 per person. The per capita income of Nigeria by contrast is US$1,109 per person. Today, Korea is the 10th largest donor country in the world.

A Global Nigeria must move into high-valued manufacturing.

Take the example of Vietnam, a nation that was at war with the United States for twenty years. Despite setbacks and post-war challenges, it quickly emerged as an Asian Tiger by mimicking successful Asian countries such as South Korea. It pushed into relatively complex product categories and horizontal diversification, that also included the processing of agricultural products.

Vietnam’s diversified exports in 2020 included $153 billion of electrical machinery and equipment; $23.9 billion of machinery including computers; $23.8 billion of footwear; and $15.5 billion of clothing and accessories, among others.

In total, Vietnam’s exports in 2020 stood at $348 billion.

Malaysia achieved vertical diversification from an agricultural base of rubber and palm oil. It would later go on to invest heavily in high-tech sectors including electronics. In 2020, its largest exports by value were in semiconductors, electronic integrated circuits, refined petroleum oils, palm oil, vulcanized rubber and accessories, and solar power diodes.

The value of Malaysia’s export in 2020 derived from electrical machinery and equipment, $86.6 billion; mineral fuels including oil, $25.5 billion; machinery, including computers $20.2 billion; animal, vegetable oils, waxes, $13.5 billion; and rubber and rubber articles, $11.2 billion, among others. In total, Malaysia’s export in 2020 was valued at $234 billion.

By contrast, Nigeria’s exports in 2020 were dominated by mineral fuels, including oil valued at $29.7 billion, which accounted for 89 percent of the exports. Nigeria’s total export value was a mere $33.5 billion. That dollar amount represents a -3.6% decrease since 2016 and a
drop of -37.5% in 2019 to 2020. Interestingly, Nigeria’s imports were dominated by machinery, including computers, mineral fuels including oil, vehicles, electrical machinery and equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc.

By contrast, most of these imports are what Vietnam and Malaysia export in abundance. And worse, Nigeria imports mineral fuels, which it should be producing as a leading crude oil exporting nation. It exports crude, it imports refined products — a befuddling irony.

So, what is the take home message here? While Nigeria’s export basket has hardly changed, Malaysia and Vietnam have used aggressive horizontal and vertical industrial manufacturing diversification to move from low-value products to high-value market products.

The result is self-evident in the comparative wealth of the three countries.

While export value per capita is $7,100 for Malaysia and $3,600 for Vietnam, it is only $160 for Nigeria. While Malaysia and Vietnam have moved on to “global manufacturing growth,” and creating massive wealth and jobs for themselves, Nigeria remains in a “survival” mode, still unable to substitute the imports of its petroleum products, while being one of the largest exporters of crude oil.

Nigeria, had policies, templates and programs for industrialization and expanding industrial manufacturing for decades. Nigeria’s first National Development Plan emphasized industrialization. There was a National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) in the 1990s; and the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) in 2015.

They were all good policies. But there is need to close the huge gap between policy ideas and implementation.

Today, capacity utilization of factories hovers around 40% compared to a desired 70%. The reality, in view of several challenges facing the industrial manufacturing sector, is that firms are moving to neighboring countries, where there is greater macroeconomic stability, enabling environments, and a much better ease of doing business.

To be a manufacturer in Nigeria is not an easy business. You succeed not because of the ease of doing business, but by surmounting several constraints that limit industrial manufacturing.

A Global Nigeria must deliver a “talent dividend.”

The rate and speed at which Nigerians are leaving the country – the so called “Japa” syndrome risks undermining Nigeria’s drive for economic rejuvenation and positioning for global dominance. Nigeria’s best talent including doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, architects, computer programmers, artists and cultural entrepreneurs, sports athletes, and even bankers, are voting with their feet and leaving Nigeria in droves due to economic hardships, high unemployment,
a corrosive rate of inflation that daily eats away at the value of their assets, insecurity and a palpable general decline in quality of life.

PwC estimates that the exodus of Nigeria’s talents will lead to a loss of close to $5 billion annually.

Yet, this is happening against the backdrop of a rapid global growth in Artificial Intelligence that holds enormous opportunities for shaping and transforming the world economy. In a recent analysis, PwC estimated that Artificial Intelligence will add $116 trillion to the global economy by 2030 and $316 billion annually to the economies of just 4 African countries – Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana by 2030.

Nigeria is well poised to take advantage of this opportunity, with the nation being one of the leaders in the fintech industry, and companies such as Flutterwave, Palm Pay, MTN Mobile Money, Piggyest ranking among the top 250 Fintech companies globally. Nigeria also has 5 of the top 7 Unicorn Fintech companies in Africa, including Interswitch, Flutterwave, OPay and Andela, demonstrating the ingenuity and entrepreneurial capacity of Nigerians to lead, innovate and dominate the competitive fintech industry.

That is why the African Development Bank, along with partners, is investing $614 million in the i-DICE program in Nigeria. This a bold initiative designed to develop digital and creative enterprises, which will help add $6 billion to Nigeria’s GDP and create 6.4 million jobs.

The African Development Bank is also supporting a center of excellence in computer coding in Nigeria as part of our larger effort in Africa to develop 130 other centers that will develop the next generation of computer coders for an artificial intelligence-driven economy that is already here.

However, the Japa syndrome risks unraveling Nigeria’s capacities in these fields, unless urgent actions are taken to stem the tide.

In a 2022 survey by Tech Cabal, 47% of the tech professionals in Nigeria indicated a desire to leave the country by 2024. There is no doubt that this will seriously hamper Nigeria’s technological capacity to innovate, its readiness index for the fourth industrial revolution, and its ability to move into higher end industries such as electronics, semi-conductors, the development of appliances and machineries, and space exploration.

We must fix the reasons for the massive exodus of Nigeria’s young and innovative talent. This requires a stable macroeconomic environment, strong infrastructure, more attractive salaries, state-of-the-art facilities to support innovation and entrepreneurship, enhanced talent absorptive capacity by industries, and fiscal incentives.

We must do this with our eyes fixated on what we can potentially be in the world.

We must decisively harness and turn Nigeria’s demographic asset into a “talent dividend.” We must become a Global Nigeria, brimming with talent, skills and entrepreneurship capacity, that is powered by clear, strong, consistent, and sustainable government policies to become globally competitive, and to retain our young talents, if we are to drive growth and competitiveness globally.

A Global Nigeria will turn “Japa” (“we are leaving”) into “Ja Pada” (we are going back!). To get there, I have some good news!
I am delighted to announce that three days ago the African Development Bank’s Board of Directors approved $100 million for the establishment of the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank of Nigeria. This new Bank will support the businesses of the youth in Nigeria, using technical assistance, business incubation, and invest equity, quasi-equity and debt in these businesses, as well as deploy guarantee facilities to de-risk lending to the businesses of young people by the financial system in Nigeria.

Your Excellencies,

While we have several challenges, the opportunities before us are immense. Our challenges are nothing more than hurdles that we can and must surmount in our race to transform Nigeria from a developing nation into a developed and well-respected nation.

The French poet and novelist, Victor Hugo, said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

It is time, for a Global Nigeria.

Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.”

It is time to look beyond our challenges and decisively seize the moment. When others doubt us, we must never doubt ourselves.
United, focused, and determined, we must create a new and brighter future for Nigeria – a Global Nigeria. For the time has come for Nigeria to arise and shine.

Yes, in the words of Isaiah 60:3 “Arise and shine for your light has come!” “Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Indeed, the labors of our heroes’ past will never be in vain.

And as a people, we will proudly serve our sovereign motherland. I am optimistic about a Global Nigeria.
It is well within our reach and collective capacities to make happen.

As we celebrate General Gowon’s 90th birthday, and Nigeria’s 64th birthday, let us in unison commit to achieving a Global Nigeria.

Oh, our dear nation, Nigeria!

As a nation born in hope, sustained by hope, and destined for greatness, you will fulfil your promise. Through storms and raging winds, your anchor will hold firm, guiding us towards a glorious future. We will safeguard your light, no matter how it flickers, for your enduring flame will never be dimmed.

God bless you, our nation, our homeland – Nigeria.” Let us Go On With One Nigeria.
Congratulations and Happy 90th birthday, General Yakubu Gowon. May God bless you and continue to keep you.
May God bless our beloved nation and help us to become a prosperous shining light … a truly Global Nigeria!

Thank you very much.