Senator Ben 'Uncommonsense' Bruce is at it again, this time, arguing that Nigeria's official world cup kits should have been produced locally, preferably by Aba traders. This comes after Nike received 3 million orders for the shirts which sold in record time yesterday, outselling 31 other countries.

Our Senator thinks it is an easy business because lots of money is involved. But the way such agreements work is that even after paying the NFF sponsorship money upfront, the NFF still earn a portion from every jersey sold by Nike. Therefore, it is a good business for both Nike and Nigeria.

But it is not an easy one!

Nike invested in design, development, global publicity and marketing. Given that there's overwhelming number of foreigners that patronise the merchandise, I don't see a local Nigerian company pulling that global publicity and acceptability for its products. Those foreigners and most Nigerians buy it at that price first because of the Nike brand before every other thing else. Brand is everything. That's why you can buy banana for N2000 at ShopRite while bargaining the same banana for N300 from those local women.

It is not everything that is produced locally that is good for the economy. There's something called comparative advantage when looking at international economic policy and diplomacy. If Nigeria can earn, say 2 billion naira from the Nike sponsorship but it can earn only 200 million naira if the same is produced locally, then it is in our own interests that we allow Nike do it because it serves our economy better and because Nike has a comparative advantage over Nigeria in that regard.

That's why even economic policies on import substitution have to be viewed through that angle. Do we have the comparative advantage in that industry? Can that advantage be built or maintained over time? And what are the tradeoffs between prices, consumer welfare and government revenue? If a foreign product generates large enough a revenue to offset the social costs of local unemployment in that sector, then there's no basis for building domestic capability because the benefits of imports far outweigh the cost.

Therefore, it is inexcusable for a senator to be uttering that gibberish, either out of blundering ignorance or political mischief. Because, they have a library at the national assembly and a handful of aides all at taxpayers' expenses. The reason is that before any legislator opens his mouth to talk on policies, he is expected to do so with the benefit of refined knowledge and informed perspectives. That's not the case with Senator Bruce and his colleagues, where commonsense is no longer common.

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