Nigeria faces many challenges, including youth unemployment and civil strife. How should the government deal with this problem? One of the reasons for youth unemployment is urban migration. Everyone moves to cities to find administrative jobs. As cities cannot cope with the number of people who migrate, urban centers are experiencing explosive population growth.
The economy needs to diversify, from over-reliance on the oil sector to agriculture. There should be local government plans to allocate land use and provide them with high-yield crops. The government should provide supervised discount loans to every young person who is ready to start farming.
Nigeria’s economy is seven times that of Ghana, but Ghana attracts more foreign direct investment than Nigeria. Why? This is a combined factor. First, the insecurity in Nigeria. People are being kidnapped in Nigeria, including foreigners. People cannot travel from one state to another without worrying about a possible attack or kidnapping. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for foreign investors to enter Nigeria where safety is not guaranteed. Investors are being killed or kidnapped for ransom. No foreign investor will settle in a place where instead of makings profit, ransoms are been demanded to release their kidnapped workers.
There is also the issue of policy inconsistency. Today the government can make it easier for you to get money, just to wake up tomorrow and add a policy that prevents you from getting money. There is also the issue of multiple taxation. Local, state, and even non-government agencies impose taxes on you. This frightens potential investors. They prefer to look for a country where they will face the fewest problems. The Nigerians in the diaspora send billions of dollars as remittances every year, but the effects of this funds are not apparent on the Nigerian economy.
To reverse this trend, it is only understandable for the President to reorganize the economy, give local governments the autonomy to earn more income, and set up a council to attract young people through the implementation of local school programs.
The President must speak to the country and demonstrate his efforts to deal with national security challenges, understand that his economic policies are not working, and form an economic team to put the country on the right economic path.
President Buhari must prevent Nigeria from further debt. What is worrying is that the Buhari government continues to borrow instead of cutting administrative costs to generate the necessary resources. If Buhari continues to borrow, Nigeria will drown even more.
