THE IMPERATIVE FOR WEALTH CREATION

Joshua J. Omojuwa urges the exploitation of the abundant talents in the country

When President Bill Clinton landed Nigeria on 26th August 2000, it was a statement-making visit that signalled the American government’s commitment to entrenching democracy in Africa. For me, that visit was memorable for many reasons but especially for Clinton’s references to Nigerian icons in his speeches. In one he made to a joint session of the National Assembly, Clinton said: “The dictators of your past hoped the hard times would silence your voices, banish your leaders, destroy your spirit. But even in the darkest days, Nigeria’s people knew they must stand up for freedom, the freedom their founders promised. Achebe championed it. Sunny Ade sang for it.” In another speech on that visit, he spoke about the cultural influence of Nigeria around the world with reference again to King Sunny Ade and our gold-winning Atlanta ’96 Eagles.

Some 23 years later, another Bill – of Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation fame – on his recent visit to President Bola Tinubu also saluted the “amazing creativity” resident in Nigeria. He also mentioned the impact of Nigeria’s “all cultural areas”, including our authors, movies and actors, noting his love for Davido and Wizkid and how his daughter told him he would be lucky to meet Burna Boy and Rema. Like his namesake, he also praised the resilience of Nigerians despite gargantuan challenges. But despite our resources and spirit, the country has not lived up to expectations.

Nigeria cannot wait another 20 years to chart a course out of her current quagmire. To extricate herself from the effects of the adverse economic climate, she must utilise her most potent resource – her people. In 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fashioned a strategic framework called Vision 2030 to reduce its dependence on oil. Seven years on, Jeddah has become a tourist hub, knocking Dubai off its perch as the tourism destination in the region. Shaking off the outcry about its poor human rights record, the country has hosted some of the world’s biggest sporting events successfully. From boxing and wrestling matches, to signing long term commitments with Formula 1, WWE, and the audacious creation of the LIV Golf series following the merger of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf, the Kingdom has put its money where its mouth is. The recent takeover of Newcastle and attracting some of the world’s biggest football stars to the country’s football league are a few of the marks they have made in world football. This is plus other investments via the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.

While Nigeria cannot boast of Saudi’s wealth, we ought to have done a lot more with ours. Nigerians are some of the most vibrant and intelligent people on earth. You might think this is subjective but it is a view held by many non-Nigerians that I have met all over the world.

Sadly, whilst we have the talent, the opportunities are mostly elsewhere. Talent and opportunities have the same relationship that ants have with sugar. Talent is attracted to opportunities and in a borderless world, there is immense pressure on talent in poor countries to migrate to richer countries desperate for their skills. It is akin to the economic design of the slave trade era where labour flowed from Africa to plantations in the Americas and Europe; the difference this time being the consent of the travelling horde. 

No one can legislate on the rights of people to seek better lives for themselves. Recent attempts by a few in the Nigerian federal parliament suggest the sponsors are disconnected from how the world works. If we want to keep our best minds here, we must provide the environment to make them remain here. Our advancements in the arts have been largely accidental. Afrobeat has taken the world by storm; Nollywood has Nigerianised the continent. Nigeria must now build the enabling environment for cultural consolidation.

There is a coolness that comes with being Nigerian outside Nigeria. I experienced it several years ago when I met a Namibian lady in Addis Ababa. We were having a casual conversation and I thought I had her attention until I accidentally dropped my passport. In response to her enquiry, I told her it was a Nigerian passport. She exclaimed: “You should have told me you were Nigerian oooo!” The ‘oooo’ stretched longer than is usual in Nigerian lingo but it was obvious the mimicry was from a Nigerian movie she watched. Her discovery of my nationality earned me more attention than I bargained for and I had to fend her off. That incident took place about seven years ago when Nollywood had the attention of the whole continent. It still does. However it is no longer seen as a new phenomenon.

Staying with the theme of the arts, where are our world class theatres? What’s our version of the O2 Arena or the Coca-Cola Dome in South Africa? Muson Centre is lovely but pales in comparison.  At a recent international conference, I was in one of my reveries imagining the conference happening in Nigeria. I was jolted back to reality when I remembered Nigeria simply did not have any facility to host a conference at that level. Yet I was in an African country.

This article is not intended to be yet another rant or an attempt to point out what is not working. That is futile. This is intended to go further to highlight the gaps that need to be closed for us to consolidate on our strengths and enable talent thrive locally. If we want the poor to breathe – to borrow from President Tinubu – we must make it easy for anyone to succeed in Nigeria without a need to japa (relocate in search of greener pastures) so that those who have already japa-ed (past tense of japa) can ja-pada (return home), not because they aren’t thriving elsewhere but because when home offers anywhere near as much as abroad, home is always where the heart wants to be.

 Omojuwa is chief strategist Alpha Reach/author, Digital Wealth Book