This thread isn't meant to be confrontational, political or tribalistic.. Imagine you were in GMB's shoes and you were to implement policies and strategies to move Nigeria forward, what would you do?

Heres what i think.. feel free to contribute..


what the current administration needs to implement:

So we have currently won the election now everyone wonders what's next? Obviously, the state of the economy is currently in shambles, our reserves are currently depleted and we have tacked on a huge amount of debt. It is currently impossible to transform the entire nation in 4 years, but we can lay the foundation and make progress towards effecting change.

It all starts with security and minimization of corruption, we have to appoint people with verifiable credentials that are not linked to corruption in key areas. We also have to effectively take the war on terror seriously which means full military engagement and reaction immediately there is an incident. Soldiers have to be properly equipped, soldiers and individuals also have to be relied upon to relay information as to the status on the field. If a soldier says, hey, we are not doing well because we are not properly equipped or because our bosses are slow in giving us orders, such issues should be taken seriously. Issues of corruption at any level should be dealt with swiftly. Intelligence gathering is paramount to this situation.

We first start by performing a full audit report of all government related accounts and assets. Without a clear picture of where we stand and how we get out of it. We also need to sit down and identify the necessary areas that need to be improved in the nation (jobs, security, infrastructure (power, water, transportation) and the economy).

We need a federal project management office that supervises and allots budgets for individual targets. This office will collate information and record milestones and ensure that our projects are within budget and within schedule as well as verify all the quality metrics are being met.

At the state level, we would need a contract award management office, this would serve as the federal eyes on the ground and would be responsible for inspecting each contract to verify that the milestones are being met. They would be required to submit information to the federal management office to ensure contracts were being fulfilled. A centralized document system with pictures and the name of the inspector from the contract management office that signed off would be stored in a database for future reference. In situations where the contracts were found not to be fulfilled and it was reported otherwise, the contractor and the inspector would be subject to full prosecution.
Centralizing and collation information gives us the opportunity to divide and conquer. No contract payments will be awarded outside the agreed upon milestones. This creates a thread of accountability, at each stage someone is responsible for the contract. There is a fluid process and payments are disbursed based upon milestones.

We also need to set a realistic vision to diversify our economies reliance on crude oil. We have an abundance of agriculture and a highly educated cheap labor force that could turn us to the next india in terms of technical investments in the next 7-10 years.. We should also aim to move from the current system of state allocation towards a system where each state generates their own revenue.

We then tackle the issue of infrastructure. With security and corruption minimized, it should be no problem to attract foreign investment. We are currently extremely far from our power goals. We do not generate up to 10% of what we need to generate and even if we were able to generate enough power, we do not have the infrastructure to distribute it. We currently need to generate 200,000 megawatts to meet demand but our power transmission facilities can only handle 4000 megawatts at full capacity. Currently, our transmission facilities operate at a 60 percent capacity due to loss and tampering. The typical power distribution plan around the world operates at a 95% capacity. So not only do we need to expand our transmission facilities by 50 times what they are now, but we also need to minimize tampering and also generate 50 times more electricity than we generate today. This is where exciting opportunities lie for foreign investors. Building and running power generation facilities and transmission facilities would generate a big return on their investment. The only stipulation on the government's part is that they utilize a reasonable amount of local nigerian labor at a federally regulated minimum income rate. This would create jobs in the country as well. Most of the losses due to transmission occur because we use natural gas for most of our power generation and when the power distribution centers are very far from the power generation centers, vandals tend to get the opportunity to tamper with it. We could solve this by diversifying our reliance on natural gas and looking into other sources of power generation like water, coal and wind. We then locate our power generation and distribution centers close to these resources so as to minimize the cases on vandalization. Less distance traveled, less room for error. So we would have a plant in Enugu close to coal, in Bayelsa close to natural gas and so on. This also creates jobs in the local economy and minimizes crime. Again, this would be a great area for foreign investment. If we are averse to having foreigners invest in our infrastructure, we should be able to raise money to fund these operations through government bonds.

Transportation, we need to expand on our road network and through the contract management office, we could effectively monitor all contracts that have been awarded to ensure that they are fulfilled. States should also be responsible for implementing their individual mass transit systems. This would serve as a source for revenue generation. If proper forms of mass transportation are available, less people would be inclined to drive and there would be less traffic.

States should be responsible for providing clean water to their constituents and billing their citizens for their water consumption. The only requirement at the federal level is that the states water supply meet certain sanitary standards.

The economy : the biggest thing killing the economy currently is lack of jobs, lots of importation, lack of diversification in the economy and a lot of government spending. We need to cut government spending significantly. Our budget needs to constitute of high infrastructure spending and lower staff spending. We need to invest heavily in agriculture. We import a huge amount of food we consume, investments need to be made to encourage small and medium businesses and farms to generate our food supplies as well as commodities for export. We also need to focus on refining our own oil. Refurbishing current refineries and installing micro-refineries in current crude producing communities. This will create a lot of jobs in the communities, reduce bunkering and help pacify members of the community. NNPC needs to either be dissolved or required to be more transparent with its transactions.

With all these infrastructure projects hiring local labor, this will serve to keep the youth employed and since most are employed, this will also improve security. In a situation where states that do not produce oil are producing a large volume of agricultural commodities, the need for dependence on crude oil is mostly reduced. Once we can export agricultural commodities and contribute a decent amount to our food supply, our economy would be in great shape.

We'll keep changing naa ni