kozmicity:

Ahaoda and Ondo state...

Which state LG?

Both Ogun - Abeokuta and Ilaro (Yewa South)

history2902:

Look, your yorubaland is nothing but a fiction, the only thing I know is the Benin empire.
All your "yoruba" chiefs are mere copy-cats of the Oba of Benin less the authenticity. Those unsecured village chiefs added the title Oba to their names while it is historically proven that that title belongs to Omo n'Oba n'Edo. It is annoying to discuss with people who do not know history but talk as if they have a point. Let me repeat: Benin City was the capital of the Benin Empire/Kingdom, that is all. The people of the empire are called the Edos, one people. Your yoruba nomination is just as new as the name nigeria. We (the Edos) have a well documented history which is well known even in european libraries.

Ilu ibinu.. Ibinu... Benin

forgiveness:



Ilu ibinu.. Ibinu... Benin

Bros, e ignore boy yen. Please. O kan ma wa da thread yi ru ni.

wristbangle:




I think it's best we change the currency boss because holding to naira means we are still maintaining the status quo. What will determine the value of your currency then will lie on our foreign exchange earnings.

i meant name of the currency, so far no one had come up with any name for the new currency. i see pic of the developers going with biafra pounds.
keep the naira name is only in the identity but with a new currency valuation and possible a new symbol.

AshiwajuFoward:


Bros, e ignore boy yen. Please. O kan ma wa da thread yi ru ni.

Ok. I see.

kevindayo:
It shows that your knowledge of history is depraved. The Oduduwa you call your own is actually a Bini Monarch. The Edo's are the founder s of your Yoruba kingdom that you pride. Your revered ancestors migrated from Edo and not the other way round, check your history and let go of the ignorance promoted by your constituent.

history2902:
Some people here don't seem to understand that yoruba have no history because the word and the grouping (which you now call yoruba) is a very new thing, it is not even as old as the niger coast company !
You guys need to spend some days in a good library and educate yourselves on African history before just spewing a lot of rubbish.

Ok, Your psychotic episodes have been well noted. I rather you forward your rantings to your Oba of ile-ibinu so he could keep him company in his solitary confinement.
This thread does not look like we are making beads or tying a george wrapper.

All omo ile-ibinu please keep off.

Please ignore the purported Benin guy abeg.

kozmicity:


Acting under the advice of honeychild...

Ah don stop Benin matter...lrmme bring anoda arguement...

Must Yoruba people come outside and agitate like Igbo people before the aknowledge that we want secession??

In my view, I don't think we necessarily have to do that. I have to admit that secessionist tendencies are not as widespread amongst our people as it is with youknowhos -- I attribute this to various reasons. However, I think it's getting to a point where even Yorubas are beginning to confront the very likely possibility of a post-Nigerian future. The least we can all do is to begin to align our orientation to this very likely possibility. It's better to be prepared than to be caught off guard. I believe the theme of this thread aptly captures that shifting orientation by some of us. Only a fool would not be anxious about where Nigeria's headed with the current state of affairs.

Personally, I've always been of the view that Nigeria as a country is living on borrowed time. And that we all can actually be better neighbours and respect our boundaries as separate countries, coz by now, if we have to be frank with ourselves, the extant arrangement is simply not working, and will probably never work.

Dalek:


for the currency we may need to continue with the Naira, but the name of the new republic may also determine it.
for forex, agriculture,IT and mineral resources is our best bet. thats one reason i would want us to include if not all but parts of kogi, it has the resources.

of course Government policy on easy of doing business is important also. we also need to review some of our bilateral agreements.

Mineral resources are not the means to long-term wealth, human resources are. Mineral resources are actually a huge part of why Nigeria is a failing state - read up on the resource curse: leaders who don't depend on the taxes they raise from their citizens have less incentive to pay attention to what they want, while the prospect of being able to cream off unearned wealth from resource extraction turns politics into a "do or die" affair where everybody running for office wants their turn to "chop" from the "national cake".

Avoiding resource-related issues is one reason why I am strongly against extending any prospective state towards the Niger-Delta in the name of embracing the Itsekiri. If it were up to me, even the oil found off the coast of Ondo and Lagos would go up in flames tomorrow. It's time we stopped distracting ourselves with such lazy-minded nonsense and focused on learning the science and technology of tomorrow: what natural resources do the likes of Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea have?

omohayek:

Mineral resources are not the means to long-term wealth, human resources are. Mineral resources are actually a huge part of why Nigeria is a failing state - read up on the resource curse: leaders who don't depend on the taxes they raise from their citizens have less incentive to pay attention to what they want, while the prospect of being able to cream off unearned wealth from resource extraction turns politics into a "do or die" affair where everybody running for office wants their turn to "chop" from the "national cake".

Avoiding resource-related issues is one reason why I am strongly against extending any prospective state towards the Niger-Delta in the name of embracing the Itsekiri. If it were up to me, even the oil found off the coast of Ondo and Lagos would go up in flames tomorrow. It's time we stopped distracting ourselves with such lazy-minded nonsense and focused on learning the science and technology of tomorrow: what natural resources do the likes of Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea have?

I concur, absolutely. We already have some of our young people doing some very impressive stuff in the science and tech space, that need to be encouraged. But with the system on ground, they'll probably end up frustrated and getting snatched/poached by the likes of Google and Facebook.

AshiwajuFoward:


I concur, absolutely. We already have some of our young people doing some very impressive stuff in the science and tech space, that need to be encouraged. But with the system on ground, they'll probably end up frustrated and getting snatched/poached by the likes of Google and Facebook.

If all of our young people are given a stable environment with low corruption, steady power, cheap, high-speed broadband, and easier access to investment, there will be many, many more new companies being created to replace any snatched up by the likes of Google and Facebook :-) The very success of those bought out will encourage many others hoping to get the same kind of payday. Besides, today's entrepreneur bought out by Google/Facebook/Apple is tomorrow's angel investor in new startups.

omohayek:

If all of our young people are given a stable environment with low corruption, steady power, cheap, high-speed broadband, and easier access to investment, there will be many, many more new companies being created to replace any snatched up by the likes of Google and Facebook :-) The very success of those bought out will encourage many others hoping to get the same kind of payday. Besides, today's entrepreneur bought out by Google/Facebook/Apple is tomorrow's angel investor in new startups.

To buttress your point, here's what I wrote on the subject on our other joint (parapo) sometime ago, using India as a case study:

Our Yoruba intellectuals, economists, and leaders need to get real and upgrade their thinking on more sustainable ways of diversifying our economic base coz the current thinking of seeing industrialization and agriculture as the only panacea to our economic development is backward, IMO.

If I could suggest, I would advise that we adopt the Indian I.T model considering its phenomenal success. The non-oil sector needs some serious revenue earners than the traditional Cocoa and other agro exports to more big dollar earning revenue generators.

Take for instance, according to an Economic Survey conducted in 2011-2012, Software accounts for 41.7% of the total services exports from India. NASSCOM estimated that India’s IT and BPO sector (excluding hardware) revenues were US$ 87.6 billion in 2011-12, generating direct employment for nearly 2.8 million persons and indirect employment of around 8.9 million. As a proportion of national GDP, IT and ITeS sector revenues grew from 1.2 per cent in 1997-8 to an estimated 7.5 per cent in 2011-12. Software exports in 2011-12 were estimated at US$69 billion compared to US$59 billion in 2010-11.



Now here's where it gets really sweet. In the 2014/15 financial year alone, the IT industry in India generated an annual revenue of around US$120 billion, a significant increase from around US$60 billion in 2008/09. Of this revenue in 2015, the majority, US$98.1 billion, was generated in exports while domestic revenue totaled more than US$20 billion.

I am sure you observed the progression in theose revenue figures? Those are the sort of earnings that we ought to be targeting. The sorts that will render oil revenues useless to us as an independent country and provide the needed funds for us to develop our infrastructure to world-class standards. And the good thing about it is that it's doable. If India of all places can do it then I see no reason why Yorubaland can't either (though I would prefer we do this in our own sovereign country). All we need to achieve this is visionary leadership that is willing to do what it takes to make it happen, and preferably our own country so we won't be held back by bad-belle people and the infamous Nigerian factor.

Personally, I see a lot of promise in the Big Data Analytics space and am already upgrading my I.T skills in order to get into the space. Again as we speak, the Indians dominate this growing I.T sector because they were visionary enough to have invested enormously in educating and positioning their people to be at the forefront in that space.

The 'Our Oyel' neighbours are still stuck on 'Oyel money', 2x2 trading, importation of substandard merchandise, drug-trafficking, and what have you as their only hope of economic viability.

We have to see beyond waiting for investors, both local and foreign, that would turn the rest of the SW into the next Ogun by way of industrialization. IMO, the service sector, particularly I.T-related, holds more promise.

AshiwajuFoward:


To buttress your point, here's what I wrote on the subject on our other joint (parapo) sometime ago, using India as a case study:

Excellent! If I could dash you 10,000 likes, I would: you've provided some hard numbers that should help give others some perspective on where the future lies. Scrambling over oil or mineral rents belongs in the dustbin of the past - technology is where the real money already is, and this trend will only intensify going forward.

Outofsync:

Nigeria right now is walking on eggshells. This thread is to put the house in order and iron out pertinent issues for the seeming eventuality of Nigeria's breakage.

And we've been advocating for restructuring and a return to regionalism for a while now.

If it isn't implemented, I see no reason for us not to secede. Nigeria is seriously dragging our region backwards. Imagine if UI , OAU, UNILAG and FUTA were getting the proper funding they deserve, then we should be dragging top 10 position in Africa.

note that within Nigeria contest the region is sitting among top 5 economy in Nigeria, now with the region outside Nigeria we should contest for top 3 conveniently.

omohayek:

Excellent! If I could dash you 10,000 likes, I would: you've provided some hard numbers that should help give others some perspective on where the future lies. Scrambling over oil or mineral rents belongs in the dustbin of the past - technology is where the real money already is, and this trend will only intensify going forward.

Nigeria is not a serious country at all. Imagine a country of more than a 150-million people trying to subsist on a paltry $36-billion from its mono-revenue source -- crude oil sales?? That amount is not even enough for the SW alone sef, not to talk of the entire country. Please, how will that country develop? The kind of revenues that could be generated from tech would make oil money look like mere pittance, I tell you. That's why I shake my head in pity and disgust when some people still make useless noises about 'our oyel'. Oyel that is losing its value by the day.

laudate:

Nah! We've just lived in the SW region for years! Yoruba hospitality is second to none!

where are you from.

That's quite explicit asiwaju.....
Since we pride ourselves in education, we should use education as the springboard for National development and economic progress.
We must invest in education, that is the only way out or else we will end up like other mediocre African countries, stuck between underdeveloped n developing economy.....
Great emphasis should be placed on STEM: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The nations that have successfully transited from 3rd world to 1st world had STEM as their educational bedrock......
we must exploit the human resources among our people by educating them properly.......
A new education curriculum that is tailored towards the need of the nation must be designed and rigoriously enforced, right from primary school to university......
The ultimate goal is to produce an educated and equally skilled workforce.
Technical education must be emphasised in our schools, we need to produce a skilled workforce that can work in factories and production companies.......
It's not about wearing shirt n tie, looking for non existent office or govt jobs......
The useless education policy/curriculum that promotes paper certificate we presently use in nigeria must be thrashed apart n thrown into the dustbin where it rightly belongs.....
We must build a substantial part of our economy around the IT/ tech industry and educational policy must reflect this.....
IT is the future, what we see today is just the beginning.....
It has already eclipsed the oil industry as the biggest industry in terms of revenue......
Serious countries are investing fortune into this sector while nigeria is yet to have a IT policy......
Our ICT minister main concern is how to be the next governor of his state.....
The tech industry also has what it takes to create millions of jobs for our youth if properly harnessed, Indian IT success story is a case study......
Agriculture and natural resources can be other source of revenue by using modern technology and IT to develop this sectors.
The era of promoting cocoa as the main source of revenue for the nation is gone and nobody should take us back......
This 2017, not 1960.....

I'll come back and talk more on national development of SW Nigeria in case of restructuring or secession.......

This is why I'm for total separation or full blown regionalism.

Look at the SW before and during regionalism, we achieved so much before and during regional administration and our potentials, human and natural benefited us immensely without oil and even before Nigeria as a country, but the end of regionalism and unitary system when power left the regions and moved to the center stopped our growth and advancement, all because we stopped making our own decisions based on our visions, ideas and our resources, the FG/central government decides for us and also dictates our growth, we have to beg people from other parts of support, votes and resources which we don't get most of the time simply because they hate, don't share our interest or just because of pure envy.


Good example.

When Fashola was the governor of Lagos state, he was able to set his vision in motion, call his own shot, secure funding from his own lawmakers from his own state with the same collective vision and goals to build the Lekki Ikoyi bridge which today is the best bridge in Nigeria, but same is not the case today regarding the 2nd NB because support, approval and funds must be secured from too many people from different states with different interests based on ethnicity, corruption and incompetence so the faith of that bridge remains in limbo.

Even the people from the SE and main beneficiaries supported the lawmakers for frustrating and slashing the budget for the bridge. Very baffling I must say.

Our association with people with little or no vision, people with shallow and shortsighted views and people with tribal and ethnic reasoning dragged us back considerable.

Look at the first Metro rail system initiated by Jakande, our collective association federally killed that project because once again, funding approval and support was denied by people with basement vision, tribal mentality at the federal level.

Look at the first IPP in Nigeria initiated and built by Tinubu. The understanding was that every MW generated shall remain in Lagos state and won't be sent into the National grid, but again, the ugly federal side with totally different inept views, warped political and shortsighted interest sabotaged the project. The power plant is still operating and sending 271MW into the national grid, the people of Lagos are still paying for that power plant via allocation deductions. By now, Lagos should have many power plants with that first in Nigeria experiment, but that single act sabotage killed that dream.


Look at the issue of special status for Lagos state. It was voted down by people from outside Lagos and the SW by people with ethnic, tribal and political foolishness, it's like what's good for Lagos was bad for the country.

Federal association is an impediment, a setback and needless distraction.


We have everything we need to stand on our 2 feet and prosper.

We built so many firsts in Nigeria and Africa with our own local resources and without oil money, cocoa is the second largest export and earner after oil.

Lagos is the 5th largest economy in Africa and adding the rest of the SW means maybe the 2nd or 3rd in Africa.

We have oil, the SW is Africa's entertainment capital

The SW controls banking and finance

The SW is home to nearly all the major industries in Nigeria

Nearly all the foreign investments entering Nigeria ends up in the SW

Lagos is home to Yabacon, Nigeria's ICT capital.

In less than 2 years, the SW will commission the world's largest single refinery, Africa's largest petrochemical plant, fertilizer plant and gas plant.


The sky is really the limit for the SW, but federal association handicaps the SW, we should be gaining from this association, but we are not.

omohayek:

Excellent! If I could dash you 10,000 likes, I would: you've provided some hard numbers that should help give others some perspective on where the future lies. Scrambling over oil or mineral rents belongs in the dustbin of the past - technology is where the real money already is, and this trend will only intensify going forward.

Just to add 2 cents sense I been reading a bit. (In coming Captain obvious statements) resources aren't bad the could be jumping off point for industrial development and assist. Let's look st Australia for example the have huge mineral reserves and make ton of cash on it. The thing the do different from African is that they also have diversified economy with productive citezens outside of the resources in ground.

The resource curse only happens when the mineral resources outmatch significantly productivity of citizens. As long as the state doesn't try and run business abd just wants to exploit productivity of citezens the place will be pretty pleasant. I always use Texas example too shoW that it's not oil that cursed Nigeria it was crazy polices. Did Texas stop farming, manufacturing and other actives after oil no.

Ps:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Timestamp 11:50 - 12:37


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NKukE_6ARY

8:20 - 10:38

Blue3k:


Just to add 2 cents sense I been reading a bit. (In coming Captain obvious statements) resources aren't bad the could be jumping off point for industrial development and assist. Let's look st Australia for example the have huge mineral reserves and make ton of cash on it. The thing the do different from African is that they also have diversified economy with productive citezens outside of the resources in ground.

The resource curse only happens when the mineral resources outmatch significantly productivity of citizens. As long as the state doesn't try and run business abd just wants to exploit productivity of citezens the place will be pretty pleasant. I always use Texas example too shoW that it's not oil that cursed Nigeria it was crazy polices. Did Texas stop farming, manufacturing and other actives after oil no.

You are right. I know a lot about TEXAS.

AshiwajuFoward:


Nigeria is not a serious country at all. Imagine a country of more than a 150-million people trying to subsist on a paltry $36-billion from its mono-revenue source -- crude oil sales?? That amount is not even enough for the SW alone sef, not to talk of the entire country. Please, how will that country develop? The kind of revenues that could be generated from tech would make oil money look like mere pittance, I tell you. That's why I shake my head in pity and disgust when some people still make useless noises about 'our oyel'. Oyel that is losing its value by the day.

that means we should start putting COMPUTER PROGRAMMING in our secondary school curriculum. and passing it should be as compulsory as math and english in the current arrangement.

in planning our economy. i guess we should not join ECOWAS for about 20 years when we are fully developed so that the powder people will not come and dilute our progress by flooding our country.

Blue3k:


Just to add 2 cents sense I been reading a bit. (In coming Captain obvious statements) resources aren't bad the could be jumping off point for industrial development and assist. Let's look st Australia for example the have huge mineral reserves and make ton of cash on it. The thing the do different from African is that they also have diversified economy with productive citezens outside of the resources in ground.

The resource curse only happens when the mineral resources outmatch significantly productivity of citizens. As long as the state doesn't try and run business abd just wants to exploit productivity of citezens the place will be pretty pleasant. I always use Texas example too shoW that it's not oil that cursed Nigeria it was crazy polices. Did Texas stop farming, manufacturing and other actives after oil no.

But the passage I've highlighted from your statement is exactly the problem any breakaway state from Nigeria will face: in the beginning, before there's enough FDI to raise worker productivity sufficiently, the easy availability of resource rents will destabilize the nation's politics in such a way as to prevent the sort of investment that increases productivity in the first place, leaving the country in a catch-22. How has oil money benefited Bayelsa?

As for the examples of Australia and Texas, you forget that

1. In both cases, they were part of a larger framework which already strongly enforced the rule of law (the British Empire in the first case, the US government in the second).
2. That framework also ensured that mineral rights, like all other property rights, were in the hands of private operators, not governments.

Finally, for all the benefits that natural resources have brought some Australians and Texans, how much better off are their living standards than resource-poor places like Singapore, Switzerland and Japan? When was the last time you heard of an Australian technology company, or Australian scientists doing Nobel Prize winning work while actually working in Australia? The Australian reliance on digging things up and exporting them has made the place a scientific and technological backwater, albeit one with nice living conditions.

Oh, and by the way, one thing about Texas I left out is that its being part of the USA has provided it crucial automatic stabilizers during those periods when the oil industry has experienced crashes. Texans thrown out of work could easily move elsewhere, while federally-funded programs like social security, medicaid and unemployment insurance helped to counteract the depressive effect of low oil prices. A newly independent African state that was reliant on resource rents wouldn't have such an option, and would be stuck with the same old "boom and bust" cycles Nigerians know so well.

deomelo:



You are right. I know a lot about TEXAS.

tell us about the economy structure of Texas

omohayek:

But the passage I've highlighted from your statement is exactly the problem any breakaway state from Nigeria will face: in the beginning, before there's enough FDI to raise worker productivity sufficiently, the easy availability of resource rents will destabilize the nation's politics in such a way as to prevent the sort of investment that increases productivity in the first place, leaving the country in a catch-22. How has oil money benefited Bayelsa?

As for the examples of Australia and Texas, you forget that

1. In both cases, they were part of a larger framework which already strongly enforced the rule of law (the British Empire in the first case, the US government in the second).
2. That framework also ensured that mineral rights, like all other property rights, were in the hands of private operators, not governments.

Finally, for all the benefits that natural resources have brought some Australians and Texans, how much better off are their living standards than resource-poor places like Singapore, Switzerland and Japan? When was the last time you heard of an Australian technology company, or Australian scientists doing Nobel Prize winning work while actually working in Australia? The Australian reliance on digging things up and exporting them has made the place a scientific and technological backwater, albeit one with nice living conditions.

Oh well I agree on both points. We had opportunity to copy but it seems like violence carried day instead of compromises. Why Nigeria didn't copy knowing these aspects when forming their own nation who knows.

The last big thing I heard about was HPV vaccine. The research was done their. The only other thing I know for sure is the one of the leaders in Fin-tech. How the stacks up to other nations you listed it's better. Australia is 4th according to world economic forum in quality of life. It was beat by Finland, Denmark and Canada. Switzerland not far off.

In your scenario I don't imagine the Oodua ignoring the Bitumen reserves in Ondo or the mining Ogun. I just just say channel tax money to education and make incentives for scientific research.

omohayek:

Mineral resources are not the means to long-term wealth, human resources are. Mineral resources are actually a huge part of why Nigeria is a failing state - read up on the resource curse: leaders who don't depend on the taxes they raise from their citizens have less incentive to pay attention to what they want, while the prospect of being able to cream off unearned wealth from resource extraction turns politics into a "do or die" affair where everybody running for office wants their turn to "chop" from the "national cake".

Avoiding resource-related issues is one reason why I am strongly against extending any prospective state towards the Niger-Delta in the name of embracing the Itsekiri. If it were up to me, even the oil found off the coast of Ondo and Lagos would go up in flames tomorrow. It's time we stopped distracting ourselves with such lazy-minded nonsense and focused on learning the science and technology of tomorrow: what natural resources do the likes of Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea have?

I never meant depend on mineral resources as a permanent earning. it's just a case using what we have to get to where we need to be.
We have skillful and innovation human resources no doubt and ICT is the new crude oil but as a new nation who needs all the revenue we can get, exploring and exploiting our lands and resources in a sane possible way will help shore up our forex while using those earnings to develop the new sectors.

Agriculture can also not be left behind, we have a nation to feed and fast. creating an enabling environment for it's development and strategic food reservation silos to create surplus b4 export can begin.

Dalek:


I never meant depend on mineral resources as a permanent earning. it's just a case using what we have to get to where we need to be.
We have skillful and innovation human resources no doubt and ICT is the new crude oil but as a new nation who needs all the revenue we can get, exploring and exploiting our lands and resources in a sane possible way will help shore up our forex while using those earnings to develop the new sectors.

Agriculture can also not be left behind, we have a nation to feed and fast. creating an enabling environment for it's development and strategic food reservation silos to create surplus b4 export can begin.

While I understand what you're saying about needing funds in the short term, I still don't think the political temptations such funding brings will be worth it. There simply can't be effective representation without the voting public having tight control over the purse strings, and that means taxation has to be where the vast majority of public money comes from.

Another reason why I don't want any reliance on resource-based government spending is that it tempts politicians into interfering in matters that are best left to the private sector. When taxpayers are footing the bill, foolish, revenue-destroying, white-elephant prestige projects become a lot harder to sell (e.g. Ajaokuta, Nigeria Airways), and politicians are forced to concentrate on just those things that will make a direct difference to ordinary people's lives - law and order, education, healthcare, good transportation infrastructure, business-friendly regulations, etc.

The long and short of it is that natural resource rents are the political equivalent of fast-food: they may fill an immediate short-term need, but the long-term damage they do simply isn't worth it in most cases. Better that we run a lean, efficient, taxpayer-funded government that recognizes upfront the primacy of the private sector, instead of one where thieving politicians fight over whose "turn" it is to "chop" from a "national cake", and then use overstaffed, inefficient parastatals and government organizations to reward their followers with deadweight "jobs". Taxpayers should be able to feel outraged at the sight of lazy, absentee or corrupt government workers, and have a reasonable expectation of seeing their anger translated into effective action by politicians who want to keep their jobs and can't rely on godfather funding to do so.

As for your point about agriculture, I agree productivity needs raising, but this doesn't require costly, heavy-handed government interaction: see here for more of my thoughts on the subject.

Dalek:


I never meant depend on mineral resources as a permanent earning. it's just a case using what we have to get to where we need to be.
We have skillful and innovation human resources no doubt and ICT is the new crude oil but as a new nation who needs all the revenue we can get, exploring and exploiting our lands and resources in a sane possible way will help shore up our forex while using those earnings to develop the new sectors.

Agriculture can also not be left behind, we have a nation to feed and fast. creating an enabling environment for it's development and strategic food reservation silos to create surplus b4 export can begin.

To be sure, mining, industrialization, and agric sectors mustn't and won't be neglected. California for example rakes in 10s of billions of dollars from its Agric sector annually. But that sector needs to be completely overhauled in the SW. Mechanized farming/agric and value addition to Agro produce and outputs is the way to go.

omohayek:

Better that we run a lean, efficient, taxpayer-funded government that recognizes upfront the primacy of the private sector, instead of one where thieving politicians fight over whose "turn" it is to "chop" from a "national cake", and then use overstaffed, inefficient parastatals and government organizations to reward their followers with deadweight "jobs". Taxpayers should be able to feel outraged at the sight of lazy, absentee or corrupt government workers, and have a reasonable expectation of seeing their anger translated into effective action by politicians who want to keep their jobs and can't rely on godfather funding to do so.

Bro, I couldn't agree with you more on the overstaffed/overbloated civil service. Truth be told, the SW civil service sector is way overbloated with ghost workers everywhere and government workers who thrive on inefficiency. By the time the governors are done paying salaries, there's little much left to execute projects. It took the current oil slump to jolt us and expose this HUGE problem.

Just look at the high octane intellectual discuss going on here. I must confess, I am a novice when it comes to economic matters, but you guys are schooling me here.

The Yoruba Nation really needs to get out of this country. Nigeria is dragging us backwards

omohayek:

While I understand what you're saying about needing funds in the short term, I still don't think the political temptations such funding brings will be worth it. There simply can't be effective representation without the voting public having tight control over the purse strings, and that means taxation has to be where the vast majority of public money comes from.

Another reason why I don't want any reliance on resource-based government spending is that it tempts politicians into interfering in matters that are best left to the private sector. When taxpayers are footing the bill, foolish, revenue-destroying, white-elephant prestige projects become a lot harder to sell (e.g. Ajaokuta, Nigeria Airways), and politicians are forced to concentrate on just those things that will make a direct difference to ordinary people's lives - law and order, education, healthcare, good transportation infrastructure, business-friendly regulations, etc.

The long and short of it is that natural resource rents are the political equivalent of fast-food: they may fill an immediate short-term need, but the long-term damage they do simply isn't worth it in most cases. Better that we run a lean, efficient, taxpayer-funded government that recognizes upfront the primacy of the private sector, instead of one where thieving politicians fight over whose "turn" it is to "chop" from a "national cake", and then use overstaffed, inefficient parastatals and government organizations to reward their followers with deadweight "jobs". Taxpayers should be able to feel outraged at the sight of lazy, absentee or corrupt government workers, and have a reasonable expectation of seeing their anger translated into effective action by politicians who want to keep their jobs and can't rely on godfather funding to do so.

As for your point about agriculture, I agree productivity needs raising, but this doesn't require costly, heavy-handed government interaction: see here for more of my thoughts on the subject.

tax would and should take a fore front, Lagos as example tax anything taxable other states can learn from that. but overtly relying on tax can be a detriment to the populace.
think about it, after separation from the old Republic our economy may take a hit as we try and find our footing.
An Alternative to increased tax (personal income, company and VAT) should be explored.

The new Constitution should enshrine what the earnings gotten from land and mineral resources should be used for.
So politicians have no choice but to follow it or leave.

AshiwajuFoward:


To be sure, mining, industrialization, and agric sectors mustn't and won't be neglected. California for example rakes in 10s of billions of dollars from its Agric sector annually. But that sector needs to be completely overhauled in the SW. Mechanized farming/agric and value addition to Agro produce and outputs is the way to go.

exactly, enabling laws and environment should be created for the success of those industries.
We have dem already, lets use them judiciously to fund new industrial revolution.

i read about how we are currently importing ceramic, while we have all the resources to make dem. so sad wen we neglect what we have in abundant to start importing and wasting forex.

imagine kogi state produce the highest number of cashew nuts, have seen this myself (square miles of cashew plantation) with the potential to become number one in the world, but becos no adequate investment we can't process those nuts and dey just rot.