Olisa Agbakoba, a senior lawyer, has explained how Nigeria can generate N100 trillion and create five million jobs using innovative and transformational legal tools, particularly now that the country is facing a revenue crisis.
According to Agbakoba, who is the senior partner and head of the Arbitration & ADR practice group in Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL), the government needs to focus on a few economic sectors, including trade policy, maritime, aviation, land administration, financial services, space, digital economy, e-commerce, entertainment, among others.
Speaking to newsmen in his office in Lagos on Wednesday, Agbakoba said the law has tools to extract revenue and create jobs, which is why Nigeria should review critical legislation, policies, and executive orders in order to create enabling environment for businesses.
“Nigeria is facing enormous economic challenges and needs massive revenue to meet existing obligations. The population is outgrowing the economy and critical steps are necessary to deal with revenue failure. The public sector contributes little in terms of revenue but can contribute a lot in terms of policy enablers – ease of doing business, legal innovations, among others,” he said.
Agbakoba, who observed that Nigerians depended largely on foreign goods due to the lack of national trade policy and legislation, said Nigeria could through a new trade policy and legislation that impose anti-dumping duties on foreign products, generate over N1 trillion annually, including massive jobs.
While noting that foreign aircraft dominate the Nigerian airspace and earn well over N1 trillion annually, Agbakoba said Nigeria needed a policy that will generate income from aviation.
He said Nigeria could generate over N1 trillion annually by passing a Fly Nigeria Bill that will ensure that public funds to purchase air tickets must fly on a Nigerian carrier, and this will create a market for goods, passengers, and services for Nigerian carriers.
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On the maritime sector, he said Nigeria loses N20 billion a day and N7.2 trillion annually to illegal fishing, illegal exploration of Nigerian waters by foreigners, non-involvement of indigenous ships in lifting crude oil, and non-involvement of Nigerian marine insurance underwriters in covering risks for the over 15,000 foreign vessels in Nigerian Cabotage waters and over 1000 oil rigs in Nigerian waters.
To remedy some of these, he said that Nigeria needs to enact the Maritime Zones Bill to take into account the huge aquatic resources estimated at N10billion, which are currently exploited.
“The Nigerian financial services are not operating optimally because many key legislation and institutions do not exist. For example, there is no legislation to compel the banks to give credit to the real sector and consumers and to stimulate the economy. Banks are engaged in short-term credit lending. Banking legislation that delivers credit to the economy is needed to support a viable economy,” Agbakoba proposed.
Pointing out that Nigeria’s banking laws need overhauling, Agbakoba said that enacting laws such as the Credit Guarantee Agency, a capitalised Development Bank, and a Prudential Authority like in the UK can inject over N10 trillion worth of credit into the economy.
He also said that the Nigerian government needed to put institutional and regulatory frameworks in place such as the Nigeria Startup Bill to enable the country to benefit from the $1 billion investment projected to come from the fintech startups.
Agbakoba, however, advised the Nigerian government to explore new sources of revenue to close the budget deficit and grow the economy through sectors like solid minerals, land administration/housing, entertainment, and agriculture.
“As we go into another election season in 2023, it is important to engage politicians putting themselves forward for elections on how they intend to resolve Nigeria’s revenue crisis,” he added.
