Talking of Midas touch, everything the Nigerian state has touched is an enigma of inefficiency, corruption and top to bottom utter waste of national resources. Economically speaking, the infrastructure of electricity, energy and water resources ceded to the state from the beginning of time is in utter shambles. Even industries built and ran by the state for the benefit of its members i.e. the Oligarchy is comatose; yet, Nigerians still call on the state to come to their rescue whenever any problem is mentioned.

I still wonder why the average Nigerian cannot see the problems staring him in the face as opportunities requiring him to put his brain to solve and become a billionaire offering services that solve that problem. He will wait for decades for the government to come solve his problems. The same problems that he talked about since the seventies are still staring him in the face!

Our salvation is within us and not with the State. The State is a monster in Nigeria – a monster that needs to be emasculated. Everything the State is involved with in Nigeria rots literally.

We had a problem of Nitel inefficiency, MTN, Glo etc filled the gap and are smiling the banks!
We had a problem of Nigeria Airways inefficiency, Arik, Aero filled the gap and are smiling to the banks.
We had a problem of poor State hospitals, Eko Hospital; Reddington filled the gap and are smiling to the banks.

Look at a national problem around you, put your mind to work and provide a better alternative/solution and Nigerians would beat their way to your door. Our problems are an opportunity for you to make it big! An unemployed graduate is jobless because he lacks ideas (and they stare at him daily) Nigerians are running away from Nigeria while the Indians, Lebanese, and Chinese are trooping to Nigeria in droves!!!!! They are HAVING A BALL right there in Nigeria!!! There is something they see that you don’t.

Don't complain about lack of water transportation and/or traffic congestion, provide a ferry service and thousands of professionals will take their cars of our roads and pay you to ferry them to their island offices. Don’t complain about poor quality of university graduates or say, business professionals. Pat Utomi didn’t. He simply floated Lagos Business School to fill the gap and he is smiling to the banks! Mike Adenuga is one of the highest employers of labor in Nigeria not by choice but by providing a solution to Nitel’s ineptitude. He could have been moaning on NAIRALAND about this problem.

The moral of the story is instead of expecting the State to solve our problems, why not see it as an opportunity to advance your own self interest by creating products and services to solve the problem (that people will pay your for). In that way, wealth and jobs are created. Even the State benefits by deriving tax revenue. By pursuing your own self interest in exploiting our problems, you inadvertently advance the progress of our society. This is key to understanding the Wealth of Nations.

The problem of the state goes beyond this however. The government through its inefficiencies actively impedes entrepreneurship with use of bureaucratic institutions which often requires wealth and influence to surmount. The power problem in Nigeria for example will definitely require importation and exportation of goods and services which require many encounter with state bureaucrats . If you manage to pass these hurdles, with growth and success it is only a matter of time before the state decides to sink its fangs into any entrepreneurial endeavor. This is true especially if something goes wrong as it must from time to time(nobody is perfect).

In fact if something goes wrong you will see the true irony of Nigeria as the citizenry will clamor for the government(the very same one that destroys everything it touches) to step in and somehow not do the same in this instance. Taxes, costly or impossible regulations(for entrepreneur and government), and corruption are sure to follow from there. Failure to comply at this point they will inevitably be met by the guns of the state where it just seems to be the case that in Nigeria life is cheap. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the government/state and the infantile dependence of the citizenry on it are the problem. However, the state is just as much an obstruction progress in the arena of entrepreneurship as it is in another. In short, if the Nigerian government will not solve your problems it will make sure you ultimately cannot either.

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The problem as I see it is that a culture of dependency has been burned into our psyche in Nigeria. Our people expect virtually every problem in Nigeria to be solved by the state. We expect the government to be the primary driver of national development and economic progress. This is a soviet style command economic structure that is grossly inefficient, corrupt and will ultimately collapse! Virtually every thing we expect the state to do in Nigeria are done by private citizens in developed countries. For example:

We complain about electricity but it takes an individual to offer a better alternative to PHCN and people will abandon PHCN like a plague!!
We complain about how agriculture has taken the back-burner in the country but it takes an individual to fill that gap by setting up an agribusiness!!

Look at developed countries and see how things that Nigerians expect the government to do are done there under private initiative and enterprise!
Even looking at threads on Nairaland, we see Nigerians who live in developed countries where government is involved in very little economic activity still advocate the government to run these things in Nigeria knowing that they have failed to do it well. The list is long from Ajaokuta steel, Nigeria railways, Nigeria airways, Nitel etc. Its Sad!!

Question for the topic poster: what have you done?

Another problem here in our country is the 'Something for Nothing' ideology that we strongly belive in. The only things that work in Nigeria are things that people pay for. Telecoms,airlines, banks work because they are private sector driven and people must pay for their services! The things that don't work in Nigeria are monopolies run by the state and they are inefficient,corrupt, incompetent and people still prefer this. Why?? Because they provided cheap subsidized services that the 'masses' can afford so only the state must provide it. No one else should be allowed to.

For example, railway services  is a state run monopoly and it is comatose, why can't individuals buy trains and run rail services the same way individuals buy planes and run airlines(Arik, Aero) or buy buses and run services (Chisco, Ekene Dili Chukwu). Why can't an individual take it upon himself to provide a better alternative to the corrupt monopoly called PHCN and alleviate our suffering?

We cried foul when the dismal state run refineries were privatized to Bluestar and said the Government should take it back and make it work. Why? Because we know that private individuals will raise the price of fuel produced by those refineries and we don't want to pay for it. So we must continue the status quo. How myopic. Three years later, the refineries are still not working and we are happy?

We go strike to prevent price deregulation of petroleum products forgetting that without it, banks will not fund the construction of private refineries due to government dictating prices that are not economic. No problem, the state must build refineries that will never work.

Nigeria is what it is today because we get what we pay for and want!! Yes I know, the state gets revenue from an oil commodity and it is its 'responsibility' to provide for Nigerians from their cradle to their graves! A state run welfare economy is noble in theory but fails in practice due to unsustainability! Things work in other countries because their citizens pay for them via their utility bills and taxes. Even to have Nigerians pay toll to get excellent roads like Lekki road is wahala!

Seun:

Question for the topic poster: what have you done?

I've currently working on opportunities in our agro allied sector. All the pepper, tomatoes, onions that experience huge post harvest losses in states like Gombe and Bauchi is where I literally see millions of dollars in value add opputunity . I'm not waiting to be 'encouraged' by the government as nigerians would say. I'm seizng it will both hands!