His Excellency,
President Muhammadu Buhari,
Aso Rock Presidential Villa,
Abuja.
Dear Mr. President,
STATE OF THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY, ABYSMAL LEVEL OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS.
Permit me, sir, as a patriotic and concerned citizen, and as someone who wants nothing but the best of achievements for your excellency as you carefully pilot the affairs of our one and only motherland, Nigeria, for the second and last time as permitted by our constitution, to lay bare my mind regarding our current poor economic condition, terrifying level of unemployment and possible solutions to them.
Our country, Nigeria, is abundantly blessed with everything that could easily secure it a pride of place among the very best countries in the comity of nations; the weather, the natural and mineral resources, human resources (expert and market for it to be among the best countries), good soil for agriculture, good weather and climate that support agricultural practices, water bodies (rivers and ocean), absence of natural disasters except flooding which is as a result of our actions and so much more. Despite what I will call our luck (because not many countries can boast of all these natural largesse), we are still lagging behind mainly because we are yet to devise practical and efficient means of harnessing these resources; especially the human resources which in turn will bring about the development of other resources.
Unemployment rate is at its lowest ebb, millions of young and abled-bodied Nigerians who are willing and ready to work are jobless and idle, yet our tertiary institutions keep churning out more and more graduates to the teeming population of these jobless youths quarterly every year. Most developed and economically balanced nations in the world have devised means of developing their human resources which later bring about development in all other sectors economically, infrastructurally and militarily.
The most funded economic sector in Nigeria is the oil sector while others are either not properly managed or poorly funded. This cannot sustain our teeming youth population anymore. There is urgent need to address the issue. Like I have earlier stated, Nigeria also needs to develop her human resources to bring about development in other areas, as nearly all the problems the country is facing is as a result of our lackadaisical attitude towards our human resources. High rate of unemployment brings about socio-terrorism because it breeds other menaces like most of what is bedevilling the country now; cybercrime, moral decadence, insecurity, fraud, depression, suicide and lawlessness.
Your administration has tried and is still trying on improving the lives of Nigerians. But, sir, there is urgent need to overhaul our economic approach. The federal and state governments and their economic teams need to sit down and reflect on the future of our great country as we cannot afford to continue doing things the same way anymore. As a patriotic Nigerian, knowing fully well that the government alone cannot be left to bring about the needed developments that we desire, here are possible solutions that I believe should help solve these problems if adopted by your administration.
Each state government through MoU with the federal government should properly and fully harness her mineral resources as well as the human resources. Like I stated earlier, God has already blessed us abundantly with these resources. The federal government has to stop baby-feeding (no disregard to our state governors) state governments by shouldering most of their responsibilities for Nigeria to grow economically. The state governments need to start waking up to their responsibilities toward the people of their respective states by formulating policies that will enhance self-employment, good working environment, business-thriving environment, investors-enticing environment, security of lives and properties and good standard of living.
According to the released statistics by BudgIT on state fiscal and sustainability index, only about six to eight states can efficiently run their states without total dependence on federal allocation and they are Lagos, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Kano and Anambra states. The federal government alone cannot provide the economic and infrastructural developments needed in Nigeria, as this will amount to a case of a father that take the responsibilities of his grandchildren while their parents do nothing. With time, the grandfather would run out of money, energy, will, drive and even life ultimately leaving the children with nobody to shoulder their responsibilities. This, I believe, is the graphic picture of where we are currently as a country.
The development of the available mineral resources will engender the regular supply of vital raw materials to our domestic industries and foreign investors that are strategic to national economic growth and job provision.
Above all, this will allow residents of each state to better evaluate their state governments, support the performing ones, keeping the less performing ones on their toes or outrightly voting them out.
With the recent development and improvement in the agricultural sector, kudos to the last and present administrations. However, there is still much to be done. The issue of wastage due to inadequate storage and preservation facilities for agricultural produce needs to be addressed and given maximum attention. Only few rich farmers are able to store and preserve their produce while the rest, majorly rural farmers have to deal with wastage.
And this is greatly affecting their yield and also discouraging most not to produce more than they can sell. They lose a vast amount of their cultivated perishable produce due to absence of storage and preservation facilities. To tackle this problem, the federal and state governments and principal players in the agriculture sector have to devise means whereby agricultural goods storage chain will be created for excess produce that farmers cannot sell immediately after harvest.
The federal government in conjunction with state governments should provide modern farming equipment at subsidised rate to farmers especially the rural farmers which are the largest contributors to Nigeria agricultural sector. Government can help by making this equipment available in each local government in Nigeria where farmers will have easy access to them at subsidised rate. Benefits of this is that it will improve productivity, make farming operations easier, save cost and most importantly make farming attractive to people.
Poor agricultural information dissemination system. There is a wide gap between agriculture research institutes and farmers, ineffective communication channels among research institutes, extension officers and farmers. New discoveries and innovations that will yield productivity and make farming easier by agriculture research institutes are not getting to farmers most especially the rural farmers. Principal players in the agriculture sector and state governments should devise practical means whereby these discoveries and innovations will get to the farmers.
Over reliance on imported goods The federal and state governments should partner with the principal players and small manufacturing entrepreneurs in the private sector to ensure that raw materials produced or mined in Nigeria are not exported out of the country to be processed into finished goods before importing them back into the country. This doesn’t speak well of us as a nation. The federal government should formulate people - friendly policies that will curb our over reliance on imported goods. A country like ours with lots of professionals, experts and geniuses should not be importing luxurious goods except necessities like medicines, automobiles and ICT goods. Our manufacturing industries can, if properly managed and funded, reduce the rate of unemployment in the country. Government should also encourage buying made-in-Nigeria goods. The best way to lead is to lead by example and it will do a lot of good if the president and state governors are buying, putting on and promoting Nigerian-made shoes, cloths, creams, and other luxurious goods. Our government officials should lead with action and we will see our economy booming.

Brain drain Nigeria is a country that is blessed with professionals and experts in all fields; medicine, law, engineering, science and technology and so on. It is however disheartening and totally regrettable that because we lack basic ideas on how to efficiently manage these human resources, we open our eyes to see thousands of professionals and experts leave the country yearly to either further their career or seek greener pastures. Recently we heard of Nigerians making exploits in the world like Osatohamen Osewengie, a physicist who makes drones for US army, Wendy Okolo who is the first black woman to earn PhD in Aerospace Engineering working with NASA, a revered American agency helping their cause, Silas Adekunle who is one of the best Robotics Engineers and many more.

The federal government needs to look at this situation and make efforts to stop future repetition by making policies that will encourage our professionals to pursue their career here in the country by providing funds for their researches, giving them scholarship to study outside the country to improve their knowledge with the agreement of coming back to the country to practice and providing enabling environment for them to showcase their potentials in conjunction with state governments.
Nigerians are hardworking people and we only need an enabling environment to showcase our potentials. To make Nigeria a better place to live, it begins with ME.
God Bless the President.
God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Yours faithfully,
AYOADE, Iyanuoluwa Joseph

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