TheCable

My people have this to say: “if someone promises to give you a dress, you would need to first look at the one he’s wearing.” If the one he is wearing mirrors that he also needs one, just know that he cannot afford to give you any valuable dress. Someone who is helpless cannot afford to help you and it takes someone who has been helped to help someone else. In other words, what you do not have, you cannot give. It is a waste of time to promise to give what you do not have in possession.

Many years ago, when I got tired of complaining alone about the precarious state of our beloved nation—as an effect of leadership vacuum, I pioneered a leadership school in the city of Lagos to churn out leaders—who know their onions, shaping our promising country. And in that school, one of the books my students make use of is, “From third world to first.” It’s a book that unveils how Singapore got to where they are today, within a few years!

In the mentioned book, you would see how Lee Kuan Yew attracted serious and valuable companies to Singapore, but one thing I want you to quickly understand is this: The first thing he did was not to travel everywhere inviting investors, promising them overnight prosperity. He first deliberately appointed best hands to be in his government, built world-class roads, built a strong army from the scratch, built world-class airports, built world-class hotels and made available constant supply of electricity. And his people were already prospering before he began to invite companies to come build their manufacturing plants in Singapore.

And when they saw the seriousness of Lee of this world and his team of leaders, Hewlett Packard and others relocated their manufacturing plants to Singapore. For the umpteenth time, I hope you remember that Lee Kuan Yew of this world appointed the best of Singaporeans to lead the rest of their newly born country, unlike here—where the worst of us lead the rest of us. In Nigeria, men of excellence are treated as dirt, because they do not know some political tin-gods.

World-class companies will never want to relocate their manufacturing plants to a nation where hunters are rescuing police men. And charmers are being employed to protect the people of a state in 21^st century. In a nation where governors are collecting monthly security votes, but only one man calls the shots of the security apparatus of Nigeria.

The first thing we need to do if we are serious about attracting serious companies (that will not turn our people to contemporary slaves) to Nigeria is for our political servants to become sincere about building a nation that truly works. For now, there is nothing like sincerity in the corridors of power in Nigeria. Everyone is in office for either himself or herself. This is not debatable at all.

The second thing we need to do is to build a 21^st century compliant army. Our army used to be the strongest, at least on this continent, but today, I doubt if we haven’t lost the position we used to occupy when it comes to security in Africa. The arrow-head of the Nigerian army said a few days ago that the army is poorly funded. No serious nation poorly funds her army! And no serious company will want to relocate its manufacturing plant to a nation that is not well protected. For now, we cannot protect our people, let alone outsiders.

The next thing we need to put in place before promising foreigners what we do not currently have is world-class roads—roads that are void of potholes. It is a shame that a nation that has crude oil in abundance does not have good roads. Shame on everyone who has ever led us as a people! Shame on them all! It is a shame that we are still talking about having good roads in 2019!

Also, if we are serious about attracting serious companies into Nigeria, not those that will turn our people to slaves as our people are currently experiencing, we need to consciously build world-class airports. The first thing people see when they come to Nigeria is our airports. Our airports speak volume on the kind of people we are. Once you see our airports, you would know that we are not serious yet as a people. We do have the money to deliberately build world-class airports, but what we do not currently have is sincerity of purpose!

In the same vein, to attract serious companies to Nigeria, not like some foreigners who are currently defrauding our people right on our soil, we need to make available—constant supply of electricity. As I am writing this article, I am supplying my own electric power and the noise is deafening. Businesses are dying daily in Nigeria because of epileptic power supply. Nigeria cannot be built while we are groping in darkness at noon time.

Lastly, promising an overnight prosperity to outsiders while all I did mention here are not in place yet—reveals to the whole world how flippant we are as a people. Also, we need to first work on the prosperity of our own people, because a poor nation cannot make outsiders rich. Remember, most of our people are currently poor, very poor.