Financial Analyst, Pascal Odigbo, has called on the Nigerian Government to build its internal capacity in order to achieve its potential as one of the World’s emerging economies, tagged the ‘MINT’ countries.
The MINT countries, made up of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey have been categorized as emerging economies that would become super powers by the year 2050.
Odigbo said that the World is always looking for the next big thing and the rationale for such projection was for investors to take position as the evaluation is based on the demographics in those countries.
He noted that this is a major pointer to the fact that other nations are showing attention to Nigeria. He said, “If you don’t have a I won’t call you.
“I think very strongly that there is absolute need for politicians to understand that this is not about personal gains but about our nation and our destiny” as this kind of declaration brings focus on what the country is doing and the world is watching.
He laid emphasis on ‘Potential’ using an analogy from the principles of Kinetic Energy in Physics. He explained that with the availability of power, one still needs to press a switch to light a bulb.
Therefore, with the world putting so much attention on Nigeria, “you need to know that you are doing something right, but now we need to be able to dimension it rightly.”
In analysing Nigeria’s potentials, he said that the strength of Nigeria is in its population, and this makes it a major ground for retail business, citing the successes of the many shopping malls that have sprung up in recent times in the country.
The ‘Sunrise Daily’ crew drew his attention to the dangers this may pose to the service and manufacturing sectors, and he agreed that things were wrong in those sectors but commended the Federal Government for its Automotive Policy which he sees as a step in the right direction towards improving the country’s manufacturing industry.
He however noted that the most important area was human development. He said, “We need to develop the people, we are putting so much into the assets rather than the people.”
He admitted that nothing was wrong with infrastructural development but it is counterproductive to build roads and other infrastructure without building the internal capacity of the people to work with these structures.
He pointed out that over a million students sit for the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations every year, but admission into the universities are available to about 500,000 people. He warned that Nigeria’s lack of human capacity would force foreign builders to bring their own people to man the country’s infrastructure, consequently leading to second slavery.
He added, “Most of the people in leadership, whether at state or local government level do not have a clue as to why they are there.”
“Government must begin to see this as a mission, developing a country is not in the mantra but in the things that you do. ”