One of the factors often blamed for the economic woes of Nigeria is the lifestyle of some Nigerians. Many Nigerians like to consume the best products in the world, unfortunately, without giving a thought to how we, as a nation, can contribute to world development through the production of equally good and competitive products.

Even in the face of the current economic down-turn, occasioned by the dreaded COVID-19, Nigerian roads are still littered with exotic cars which are not ridden, even by nationals of their countries of origin. Reason is that their nationals cannot afford such luxuries due to heavy tax burden they would attract. We wear the best clothing materials imported from outside the country to the neglect of our own made-in-Nigeria materials.

This time around, our local tailors and shoe manufacturers are making waves. We should encourage them to have the boldness of inscribing ‘Made-in-Nigeria’ on those products, instead of crediting the sweat of their industry to Italy or France, when in actual fact the materials are made in Aba or Onitsha.

Before the outbreak of coronavirus, the well-to-do in Nigeria patronized hospitals outside Nigeria without looking in at our own centres of our medical excellence. This is why India was scandalously recommended for affluent Nigerians, even for ailments that could be managed by our own hospitals, if they had developed our local health institutions to the standard of those they patronized abroad. Realists even thought that the devastating effect of COVID-19 would have thought us a big lesson.

It is against the background of this frivolity and un-strategic spending which do not positively affect the real sectors of the economy, nor constitute any investment at all, that the call for strategic spending has become imperative. Nigerians should cut down their desire for those things we cannot produce at home. This is not time for showmanship. Now that ban of flight operations are being eased down, Nigerians should equally cut down the number of their foreign trips. We all know that these are real guzzlers of our foreign exchange.

Again, it must be agreed that diversification is key to our survival. Before independence, the nation started its match to development with agriculture and solid mineral processing. But beguiled by oil windfall, we went complacent and virtually stopped industrializing. And since the arrival of mineral oil, we have not made any serious advance to really process petroleum products in order to benefit from its value chain.

Nigeria ought to have leveraged on processing oil products, building more modern refineries, maintaining old ones through the much talked about turn around maintenance, TAM. The existing refineries, some of them, more than four decades old, can no longer cope with the demands of the moment. Happy enough, some local private investors are building new refineries. Shopping for foreign exchange for imports is counterproductive as the spending in that area is un-strategic.

In the area of industrialization, this is the time to address the issue of infant industries, especially with the ravaging effect of COVID-19. Major industries shut down for various operational problems should be encouraged to re-open while the small scale industries just starting should be protected, given time and all the encouragement to improve on the quality of their products.

Some decades ago, Taiwanese products were pejoratively nicknamed ‘Taiwan’, meaning inferior. Today, the story has changed. Taiwan looked inwards, went into research and, today, it is a first class industrial giant of the world. It is never too late to start. To salvage the economy, accessible funds, not ones politically motivated, should be made available to small and medium scale industrial establishments and cooperative societies.
Micro-Finance banks scattered all over the country should cash in on the opportunity and make their loan conditions more liberal. This way, the people at the grassroots would be involved and encouraged to participate in building the economy.

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