A grossly underfunded economy: Our Current Reality
Nigeria’s recent protests against bad governance highlight the struggle of the average Nigerian to meet basic needs like food, shelter, jobs, healthcare, and a liveable environment. The core issue is the inability to finance these essentials across all levels—individual, corporate, and national. Printing more naira may address the lack of money, but without foreign exchange backing, it lacks real value, worsening the economic situation.
Sustainable financing must come from what the nation, its citizens, and businesses produce and sell globally. In my view, bad governance is the failure to create an environment where citizens and businesses can thrive. Despite years of promises, the protests reveal persistent leadership failures.
Read also: The unfinished revolution—Nigeria economic resurrection post-#EndBadGovernance
The naira’s depreciation from 75 kobo to N1,500 per dollar over a generation highlights a severe supply-demand imbalance. Our growing population has not been matched with national-scale export production, leaving us short of fx for imports. We are stuck at the bottom of the value chain, still exporting largely raw materials. This issue affects sectors like leather, battery production, agriculture, manufacturing, and even ICT, where we depend on foreign-built tools for productivity. We lack the scale to exploit global or local opportunities.
Mr President’s promises: A new hope for prosperity?
Following the protests, the president’s address offered potential strategies for a better tomorrow. Which of his strategies and promises can be a turning point? Items 21-26 and 29-30 are crucial for national productivity, job creation, and poverty reduction.
Two categories of his promises exist:
- Category A: Basically, palliatives like consumer credit, nano-grants, and small business loans.
- Category B: Promises that, if well implemented, could lead to foreign exchange gains and overall economic growth.
Some of the Economic Growth Initiatives:
Digital and Creative Enterprises (IDiCE): Nigeria’s large youth population is a key competitive advantage. This initiative should be public-private-sector modelled with a well-defined curriculum aligned with global standards, focussing on valuable, exportable, and future-oriented skills.
Skill-Up Artisans Programme (SUPA), Nigerian Youth Academy (NIYA), National Youth Talent Export Programme (NATEP): Knowledge is power. We need to emphasise high-export potential skills like coding, shoemaking, garment making, farming in selected crops, and industrial manufacturing. Turkey, for example, boosted its FX income by focussing on the furniture industry and adopting specialised training in classrooms and factories. Today Turkish furniture is everywhere—national-scale vision, focus, strategy, skill, and machines. While this initiative is promising, it needs a solid business angle modelled after well-thought-out education-for-employment principles wrapped around the sectors chosen for national economic focus.
Read also: #EndBadGovernance protest a national call to action PSJ Nigeria
Incentives for Farmers: Removing tariffs on essential imports is a start, but sustained progress requires investment in agro-processing, modern farming techniques, and export financing. The availability of arable land presents a competitive advantage, especially if, as a nation, we focus on specific crops with massive global and industrial appeal. This can earn us quick FX inflows while driving job creation and prosperity. This same approach can be applied to the solid minerals industry.
Summary
The president’s ideas show promise, but sustainable wealth requires a national/presidential focus on export-driven, large-scale productivity on select products and services. Clear visions and targets need to be set, and appropriate public and private sector organs are charged to make things happen.
About the author:
Sir Mac Atasie is a seasoned strategy consultant and innovation architect who has been a key part of shaping Nigeria’s corporate and technological ecosystem. As CEO of Nextzon and former Head of Strategy at Accenture, he has led many transformative initiatives. He also served as the CEO of HEIRS Alliance, forerunners to HEIRS Holdings, a conglomerate with investments in Transcorp and other notable corporations. With a deep imprint in Nigeria’s financial sector, Mac has designed strategies for leading banks, insurance companies, and regulatory bodies including the CBN, SEC, and BOI.
