THE VISION FOR NIGERIAN CHANGE IN

OUR LIFETIME
Critical Mass Manifesto

By

The Critical Mass for Nigerian Change in our Lifetime.

Vision for Nigerian Change in our lifetime: Critical Mass Manifesto

This manifesto frames the vision of Nigeria's third generation. It is a compilation of schemes, plans,
programs, and goals which its compilers have committed to in their collective quest for positive
change in Nigeria. It's fundamental premise is that Nigeria's drift and incapability so far has been
the consequence of a missing shared vision and the absence of consensus around a vision. This
document and the process that has created it corrects those two problems and every single complier
has made a personal commitment to the framework and ideology that this document creates. It is an
ideology of new Africans in the global age and is completely non-partisan even if in pursuit of
openness, change, progress and action.

As you read through or contribute please remember that the Critical Mass for Nigerian Change in
our Lifetime is not an organisation but a movement spreading consensus, sharing vision and
committing to action one person at a time. It is your time. It is Nigeria's time.
 Contents

1. Bringing Nigeria into the modern world economy.

2. How to “colonise” West Africa.
3. How to resolve National Question.
4. How to improve urban living standards.
5. How to create effective political institutions.
6. “ “ “ “ economic “
7. “ “ “ “ social “
8. How to modernise and “effectivise” Nigeria's cultural and traditional heritage.
9. How to create an open and pluralistic society.
10. How to spark off the industrial revolution in Nigeria.
11.How to effectively bridge the digital divide with the west.
12. How to dramatically expand Nigeria's middle class.
13. How to create an effective government
14. How to bring the rural poor into the 21st century.
15. How to deal with religious divides.
16. How to achieve food sufficiency.
17. How to bridge the gap between town and gown.
18. How Nigeria can lead the first modern “black” civilisation.
19. How to draw on our western heritage while leveraging our traditional values in
the creation of a competitive national culture.
20. How to terminate all the ghosts of Nigeria's past.
21. How to get stolen and expatriated money back into the Nigerian economy.
22. How to develop an effective financial system
23. How to protect our culture & create our own comprehensive system of values
reference points.
24. How to develop citizens
25. How to improve access to justice.
26. How to define Nigeria's foreign policy.
27. How to define Nigeria's military policy.
28. How to develop tourism in Nigeria.
29. How to create Nigerian literature into an institution that creates, ideas,
synthesise ideas, propagate them and permeate the minds of Nigerians.
30. How to reform the press and return to a free press.
31. How to remove money from politics.
32. How to remove the ethical gap that exists in Nigerian public life.
33. How to develop a transportation backbone for Nigeria.
34. How to develop a fair fiscal and revenue-generation arrangement for Nigeria.
35. How to capitalise on Sino-Indian goals of exporting technology.
36. How to reinstate the privilege of Nigerian citizenship.
37. How to leverage the economic power of Nigerians in the diaspora and from
other blacks in the diaspora.
38. How to reverse the “brain-drain”.
39. How to get our country back from the stooges of imperialism
40. How to achieve emancipation from neo-colonisation and neo-imperialism.
41. How to create a Nigeria that westerners can truly live in.
42. How to stop racism and sexism in Nigeria.
43. How to protect our environment and achieve sustainability.
44. How to become a world leader in sports and the arts.
45. How to solve the housing problem.
46. How to tap the Nigerian potential.
47. How to achieve social security in Nigeria.
48. How to create universal education in Nigeria.
49. How to establish a meritocracy in Nigeria.
50. A meaning of freedom that we all agree with.
51. How to make sport a multi-billion dollar Nigerian industry.
52. How to protect our freedom(s).
53. Open-ended vision or Nigeria.
54. How to achieve key MDGs.
55. How to expand and equalise opportunity in Nigeria.
56. Open Issues
Vision One: Bringing Nigeria into the modern world economy.

1. Become a regional infrastructure and economic hub. The specific action steps for doing
this would be in search of building critical mass in 7 key industries namely; Aviation,
Banking, Oil & Gas, Steel, Consumer Goods, Advertising & Media, Power, Telecoms and
education.
2. Continued multilateralism. The problem with Nigerian multilateralism has been its failure
to nail down economic benefits. While endorsing a continuation of this approach, the rules
of engagement need to be amended so that the primary goal is to boil each multilateral act
into Naira and Kobo or some other measurable economic effect.
3. Maintain close economic cooperation and co-development with South Africa while
synchronising economic plans and technological/scientific standards.
4. Create an effective program for producing 60 million knowledge workers in 40 years.
Knowledge worker here refers to any individual who possesses multiple skill tracks
adaptable across industries.
5. Complete the overhaul of the Nigerian power infrastructure and lead a massive
infrastructure creation drive in roads, business districts, shopping areas, ports, and roads.
6. Adjust the Nigerian transportation system to be able to become tourism-oriented and
develop domestic tourism.
7. Create policies that “entrap” foreign investment particularly in the Oil & Gas and telecoms
industries, keeping the money circulating in Nigeria and generating economic benefit in
Nigeria.
8. Fix the domestic security situation. In particular, Nigeria must deal with armed robbery,
effective police response, and outright lawlessness (absence of rule of law).

The main idea would be to become a regional hub. That way, Nigeria can attract much more
foreign investment as the attraction pitch now becomes, buy into Nigeria and get a free pass into
West Africa. Furthermore, we can take more of the big-dollar expenditures of our neighbours,
some of which are actually quite richer than us in terms of incomes. By being in tandem with
South Africa we can develop a preferred market for Nigerian companies to raise capital and have
access to and draw mass from Africa's biggest economy which has the same need in this respect. In
the creation of knowledge workers, in the immediate short run Nigeria would be able to export
more skilled people whose financial repatriations would become ever more important in Nigeria's
search for investment capital and foreign exchange. Over time, as this capital becomes
domesticated, the holders of both the economic and human capital would be able to lead the
economic jump-start in Nigeria. Getting the infrastructure laid is a basic. About making Nigeria
safe for tourism, the target is to attract black westerners who would stream to Nigeria once it is
established as a visitable place One of the current barriers to that is the impossibility of any
foreigner visiting Nigeria without knowledge of Nigeria. Another importance of pushing domestic
tourism is to lead to openness in Nigerian society with attendant economic mobility, openness of
opportunity and the opportunity for lower middle class jobs.
The final and perhaps most challenging would be locking in foreign investment in spite of
international bearishness on Nigeria where companies who have been in Nigeria for 60 years
routinely repatriate profits.

Vision Two: How to “colonise” West Africa.

 1. Create Incentives for Nigerian companies moving into West Africa particularly in the areas
of Aviation, Banking, Oil & Gas, Steel, Consumer Goods, Advertising & Media, Power,
Telecoms and Education.
2. Nigeria's second official language is French. This needs to be reinforced by introducing
French on official Nigerian documents, subtitling media programs in French, creating a
great number of French speakers etc.
3. Start to make strong use of West African economic dependence on Nigeria to push an
ECOWAS that pushes the Nigerian agenda. Nigeria needs to place a greater stake in
ECOWAS as a foreign policy priority even beyond the AU, NEPAD and NAM etc.
4. Promote the shared culture of West Africa which is perhaps best demonstrated in Nigeria.
This can be promoted using events and media, but also using film, music, football sports
and art. Nigeria needs to start pushing it internationally and in developing Nigerian tourism
must allow trickle-downs of inflows into West Africa to give West African nations a stake
in promoting West Africa as a common culture. Nigeria just needs to go one better in
demonstrating that West African cultural diversity converges in Nigeria while linking it to
Caribbean and Diaspora cultures. If you love Brazilian music you should visit Nigeria
where it all started.
5. Aim to develop technological standards that West African nations can not aspire to but
which they can share with Nigeria. For example, nuclear energy development, telecoms
satellites, financial standards, military technology etc.
6. Push the idea of Buy into Nigeria, get West Africa free.
7. Competing with the Ports of neighbouring countries as the preferred port for Nigeria's
land-locked neighbours by ensuring efficiency, making duties and rates competitive and
tying these to electricity supply and other leverages Nigeria currently has.

Vision Three: How to Resolve the National Question

Nigeria remains a mere geographic expression. The basis of unity exists but has not been
established beyond reasonable doubt. Fundamental to this is the unfortunate situation resultant
from the fact that fiscal competition in Nigeria has been about who takes more and not who

1. Convene a truly sovereign national conference which would originally negotiate the terms
for Nigerian nationhood.
2. Enshrine the derivation principle which allows states and local governments to collect their
own revenue and pay taxes to the federal government. Irrespective of what the F.G.'s share
would be, this principle would help keep all states viable or to put it differently, to obviate
unviable states and stop the situation where whole states can't pay the meagre salaries of
their own employees.
3. Convert traditional rulership as an institution into a constitutionally guaranteed and defined
role. The objective is to formalise their roles and bring the ethnic nationalities into
government at all levels.
4. Increase the constitutional function allocated to the local governments and create local
governments to mirror ethnic and sub-ethnic arrangements. Allow local government status
to every hamlet that seeks it but enshrine a clear but fair revenue allocation mechanism that
distributes collected revenue at source.
5. Develop other natural resources which are abundant in Nigeria applying the same revenue-
distribution standards.
6. Ensure Universal Basic Education with strong universal teaching of civic and ethics.
7. Reform the Land Use Act to enshrine communal ownership of land while establishing clear
enforceable standards of ownership..
Vision Four: How to Improve Urban living standards

1. Commission a re-design of the urban layouts for the ten largest Nigerian cities; Lagos,
Kano, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Abuja, Ibadan, Enugu, Onitsha, Benin, Abeokuta. This
would map the as-is states of these states and then establish a desired state following which
clear action would then be taken to create the desired state looking into the future. States
failing to “stick to the plan” would then be sanctioned and fail to benefit from a special
Federal fund for these cities.
2. Set a new standard for the creation of new neighbourhoods and developments requiring
basic infrastructure requirements to include cell-sites, banks, hospitals, public water source,
National grid connection, etc.
3. Wage a war against public filth in these cities by funding modern sewer systems, garbage
collection and disposal, fines for public littering, pollution fines, and eradicate breeding
sites for rats and mosquitoes, the two major causes of disease in Nigeria.
4. Every Nigerian neighbourhood in the major cities of the South, have either a residential
association, a land-lord association or both. These associations have mainly served to make
security arrangements in form of street gates and OPC payments, but also to fix rent prices.
These associations with their direct contact with households, and the ability of the
landlords to press action, have a huge potential for strengthening and making local
government effective. Many workable schemes could be built around them. One would be
the use of local unemployed youths in the building, and maintenance of roads and other
public infrastructure with government organisation and resources. This could be built into
local laws. Another workable scheme is the use of this organisations to check the delivery
of governance at the local level for example by constitutionally granting audit functions on
these organisations, for example in the approval of public projects surpassing a certain
threshold amount.
5. Recruit 10000 police for each million of population in each of these cities. The post-
reinforcement local governments, the states, local informal businesses, and local
governments should have the burden of paying their salaries while they still belong to the
federal government. The National service scheme could be expanded to include graduates
of the Universal Basic Education schemes. These young people could volunteer upon
reaching a set age, say 21, to serve in the local police forces, with their accommodation and
basic needs covered, for three years following which they would qualify for full
scholarships in Nigerian Universities should they meet admission requirements
6. The creation of full-scale comprehensive and well-thought-out mass transit schemes in the
three biggest cities and Abuja, with all other cities coming on stream as resources become
available in terms of population size and economic importance. These plans would
integrate light rail, subways, large bus services, taxis, water taxis and ferries (where
possible) and rail services. Private companies can be chartered to build these services with
contracts that become renewable and subject to competitive bidding and buy-out within a
set period say 40 years. The money for the services would come from working the financial
markets which are poised to increasingly develop muscle as consolidation occurs, stolen
money is repatriated and informal sources are tapped. Also, there would be a payroll tax
deducted directly from the transport benefits of formally employed people over a set time,
based on careful estimates. Another source are the churches and other religious
organisations which tap a lot of money and can be induced to spend it on such a socially
desirable cause. This does not need to constitute a tax but moral persuasion. The cities,
states and local governments have to provide the right sorts of guarantees and incentives to
these charter companies. Where there are laws or statutes preventing this scheme, reform of
such must become a priority.
 7. Several new neighbourhoods need to be built in the 10 major cities, again with other cities
being brought in as conditions allow. Some of the factors to consider in raising financing
for this scheme is the attraction of mass-production builders with the right incentives to
build economically. The Nigerian house needs to change to use more economical materials
than are used now especially in view of favourable climate. Schemes sponsoring user-built
homes in the major cities need also to be considered and the mortgage system which is the
most underutilised sector of the economy can be promoted despite Nigerians' strong
aversion to long-term debt.
8. In Nigeria's major cities, rents have risen constantly over time and, with rents being a
significant portion of household incomes, has been a main contributing factor to inflation
and declines in the standard of living. As the rents have risen, so have unfair fees, shirking
of tenant rights, the charging of 2 years rental deposits, and the the passing of property
owner costs to tenants. Worse still, the rental properties are themselves not maintained and
often basic facilities are not made available. For the sake of social justice this system has to
be reformed. To lower the gap between the benefits derived by landlords and those derived
by tenants either of two things can be done; Enforce strict property standards, including
maintaining houses in the appropriate way and delivering well-maintained rental properties
to renters or simply the prevention of greedy fees and the practice of charging 2 year rents
in advance. Also necessary might be caps on rental rate increases.
9. Recreation of green spaces within urban areas in the form of trees, plant covered walks,
parks, fields, wooded areas etc.
10. Massive building of sports facilities and public meeting places. These can be financed by
constraining the Nigerian “owambe” crowd to rent these facilities for their parties.

Vision Five: How to create effective political institutions

1. Reverse the centralisation of power at the political and geographical centre in favour of the
local government level. It might be necessary to create more local governments but the
bulk of revenue earned and even political and legal control should remain with local
governments where governance is closest to the people and the use of power and allocation
of resources can be best monitored. The constitution should be amended to allow the
executive at the centre to make representations to claim certain powers when needed but
with renewal clause. For example, the federal government could be denied of the sole right
to maintain police forces. At the same time, the executive branch can be given the right to
meet certain certified conditions for having that power for limited periods upon the
approval of the state executives and the central legislature with simple rules of passage.
2. Create constitutional guarantee of judicial independence by creating a constitutional
stipulation separating the expenditures for the judiciary and for the electoral commission
3. Reform the electoral system such that all parties would be funded by the state while placing
a strict cap on the amounts that can be raised from other means. The funding of parties
would apply only to electoral matters, based on reimbursement of expenses spent on
campaigning and allied matters.
4. The role of traditional rulers as “permanent” public officials can be written into the
constitution, for example giving them mayoral type duties over the cities, towns and
villages in their jurisdiction as defined today.
5. Constitutional role given to office of due process which would be removed from the
executive branch and placed under judicial control. A new unit in the office to handle all
government procurements which would be subject to oversight by the presidency.
6. A reform of the military to give compulsory military training to all Nigerians reaching the
age of 18 years. This service would nationalise all Nigerians, and eventually lead to the
reduction of the military which, at this stage in Nigerian history is not needed at its current
 size and which can be supplanted by volunteer armies as the need arises in the future. This
would also delete the civilian-military power divide that exists in Nigeria.
7. The teaching of civics in all Nigerian schools as a fundamental part of the curriculum to
remove the bogey of uncivilised and unsocialised (non) citizens.
8. Reform of the judiciary to improve access to justice and quality of service by; simplifying
and modernising Nigeria's laws, increasing the number of courts particularly those that
would handle small claims, customary matters and civil suits. Reforming judicial procedure
and making judicial processes more transparent. Improving the speed of judicial processes.
Another way of improving access to justice would be to facilitate public defenders and
citizen counsellors to provide legal assistance and services to low-income individuals. Still
another reform necessary is the reform of tort laws to enable the ability of wronged parties
to seek redress, especially against the government, its agencies and larger corporations.
9. The creation of methods and means for the accurate enumeration of Nigerian property,
streets, populations and monuments. The technology for this would become cheaper and
more readily available and must be tapped. This would allow for very accurate planning
and the effective use of government resources while also even engendering private
enterprise.
10. Operationalising a new principle which would require parties to field teams of running
mates with one political heavyweight and one wonk. This could be like the PDP fielding
Ibrahim Babangida and Pat Utomi.
11. Make it compulsory to publicise each gubernatorial, chairmanship or presidential
candidate's entire range of potential political appointees (especially ministers ), allowing
for their antecedents to be scrutinised by the public before they ever end up in office. This
would constrain executives to be much more discerning and careful in selection while
weeding out the thieves and dark horses that get foisted on the public and sometimes even
the executive.

Vision Six: How to create effective economic institutions

1. Post-consolidation, the banks should have more control over the board of the Central Bank.
The operational aspects of the central bank should on the other hand be completely
immunised from the banks and run as a corporation employing, retaining and developing
people for the job of central banking.
2. Creating a social security system on the backbone of Nigeria's extended family system
which already performs that function. One scheme could involve granting tax credits and
tax refunds to tax payers who demonstrate the care of elderly, unemployed or inform
members of their extended family.
3. The mineral survey map of Nigeria should be vested, in principle, to a corporation owned
by all the Nigerian people with any purchases from the corporation going directly to a trust
that promotes investment in Nigerian minerals.
4. Readjust the structure of the Nigerian economy from the colonial structure that it basically
still has. The Nigerian economy is still oriented towards taking value outside Nigeria in its
rawest form just like in colonial days. For example, it is a fact that colonial policies made
Nigeria a net food importer. It is necessary to roll-back the factors built into the system by
colonialism which created this. Post-Independence Nigerian governments have largely just
taken the colonial template for running a country for their use without readjustments.
5. Incentives should be given to move all Nigerians into banking sector participation. For
example, affairs of state could require all payments in bank cheques and electronic cards.
VAT discounts could be offered for cheque payments, etc. The goal of formalising the
informal sector is an important one and this is a prime method for achieving that objective.
6. The granting of street trading licences (daily or weekly), with the proceeds going directly
 to the building of new markets and commercial centres.
7. Shoring-up the Naira by localising the foreign reserves, part-paying JV calls in Naira and
making the major chunk of earned forex available for domestic use.
8. Creating a credit rating, leasing and consumer credit system, that enables the dispensing of
consumer loans for the purchase of capital goods like cars, houses etc.
9. Competing with the Ports of neighbouring countries as the preferred port for Nigeria's
land-locked neighbours by ensuring efficiency, making duties and rates competitive and
tying these to electricity supply and other leverages Nigeria currently has.
10. A very aggressive campaign to promote quality, environmental and innovation standards
with rewards given in a market-driven incentive system.
11. The national adoption of the Proudly Nigerian campaign and the liberalisation of the local
textiles and clothing market including the industrialisation of traditional fabrics.
12. The enforcement of intellectual property rights in view of Nigeria's potential in the global
English language media.
13. Reforming the structure of the oil industry. One of the prime goals has to be the elimination
of the joint ventures and production sharing contracts in which the Federal Government
pays the the larger share of E & P costs in exchange for the same percentage of profits.
This mechanism is outdated and unnecessary and only serve to isolate the Nigerian
economy from external sources of finance while making large chunks of Nigeria's foreign
exchange reserves unavailable for domestic use and creating a vicious circle of insufficient
supply of forex thus pushing down the value of the Naira. Even worse is that this practice
keeps the vast majorities of operational expenditures outside of Nigeria despite the fact that
these monies are financed at great costs to the Nigerian system. Another important reform
necessary is the need to remove government involvement in the sector with special taxes
and royalties. The sector, despite its importance needs to have its preferred sector status
removed, if only to erase government over-reliance on revenue from that sector for its
revenues at the neglect of other sectors which contribute more to the national product band
but less to government revenue, sectors like agriculture and industry. Another important
reform is to improve the involvement of local communities in the oil industry. One good
way to do this would be to repeal laws that vest ownership of all mineral-holding land in
the Federal government. These lands should belong to the owners of the land who would
need to be negotiated with by any corporations or interests seeking the minerals therein.
14. Nigeria can easily become a major refiner of petroleum products. Refining capacity
worldwide is in serious demand and would be for a long time. The United States for
example, has not had new refineries built for decades due to an unfavourable regulatory
and economic environment. Nigeria can very easily fill the void, but this must never be
done at the risk of domestic fuel prices which can remain a competitive factor for the
Nigerian economy. Because of the superiority of Nigerian crude, its attractiveness for
refining at cheap costs are great and must be promoted. The differentials in transportation
and financing costs would eliminate the vicious cycle of fuel importation and subsidy
removals.
15. The right to, and the protection of, private property is one of the most important
fundamentals of a free industrialised economy. The Land Use Act of 1979 completely
distorted and continually distrusts this right and its importance. It vests all land in state
governments with individuals only having temporary use. This was completely alien to
Nigerian cultures which have almost entirely always vested land in families and
communities. It has also allowed governments to claim people's land without or with
merely nominal compensation. It has also denied the owners of mineral-holding lands from
benefiting from the value of their property. This is ripe for reform even though reform of
this industry is not entirely without serious practical challenges. The most serious is
creating a fair formula for apportioning land and returning land to its original owners. One
simple formula that must be considered is to set up a commission that would develop
 accurate guidelines for establishing ownership and then reviewing all lands with public
and community input, before handing over lands that can their ownerships can be clearly
and incontrovertibly proven. This would include all land in current occupation, existing
title deeds and even those in legal contest. All other lands may vest in the state but the
families in the area would have buy-out rights at market rates.
16. Given Nigeria's technological backwardness and the fact that imports continue to be
dominated by expenditures on machine parts and replacement parts for capital goods. In
changing the current weak structure of Nigeria's economy, it is important to reverse this
situation. One way would be to improve the capability of local fabrication yards who can
reverse-engineer machines, make spare parts, design and build new processes and
equipment cheaper even if with lower quality.
17. Building policy on the acknowledgement of government's failures and incompetence
particularly recognising that taxes have gone unpaid. The idea would be to dramatically
improve tax collection but allowing a variety of tax breaks to deliver the various policy
ends needed for social and economic change.

Vision Seven: Reforming Social Institutions

1. The Nigerian Police is crying for reform. It has to be the worst police in the whole wide
world which has its corps buying their own uniforms and materials, and relying on 20
Naira bribes for survival. The police must develop a clear capability in forensics. A
database of criminal and offenders must be created and the ability of police to dial-in to
access this database must be promoted. To improve discipline, it is possible to create group
internal policing mechanisms such as peer-supervision, holding teams accountable for
individual violations, and whistle-blower protection and reward. Psychiatric tests must be
applied regularly . Weapons use and fitness training and tests must be frequent.
2. One thing that can be done to strengthen the health sector, is to specify a certain percentage
of expenditures at all levels to be devoted primary health care, preventive medicine and
social medicine. This would improve the delivery of primary health care and keep health
care expenditures effective.
3. As the church in Nigeria becomes ever more powerful, influential and rich, that institution
now needs to be engaged with the ethical and developmental needs of society so that the
vast sums contributed to the churches can fund universities, schools, transports systems and
hospitals, filling-in the gaps where government can not be effective.
4. Educational Sector
5. Universities

Vision Eight: Modernising Traditional Nigeria and yet keeping our cultural heritage.

1. It is looking more and more apparent that the only way that Nigerian cultural values, norms
and values can be protected would be by modernising them. Nigerian music has
successfully undergone this transition with most of our traditional forms of music already
substantially modernised to appeal to a populace with ever-increasing taste for all things
Western. The Federal ministry of culture can do a lot to help promote new modernised
forms of all Nigerian art.
2. Nigerian languages are starting to die off. With language being one of the prime
components of culture, this is a disaster. As at January 2006, only one Nigerian language,
Yoruba is a search language served by Google. This is another symptom of the constant
erosion of Nigerian languages many of which still have no script, they are still not being
translated and their grammars and structures are not being studied. The solution to this is to
start a 50-year program with the objective of developing scripts for all Nigerian languages,
 developing literature in those languages and studying their language and structures. It is
also important to sponsor government news in every single language.
3. Nigerian ancient history is virtually unknown and told to us. There have been no significant
studies and expositions of Nigerian history done by Nigerians. More important, a lot of oral
traditions have been allowed to be lost forever without record. Most of Nigeria remains
archaeologically unexplored. For that reasons even the larger sub-nations/ethnic groups
rely on myth and semi-truths to explain their very origin. A program must be done to have
a 100 year trust to completely explore Nigeria archaeologically and investigate/explain the
origins of all Nigerian ethnic groups.
4. A strong campaign must be started to reconstruct Nigeria's ancient artefacts where
salvageable and to recover those stolen by the West. The West continues to lay claim to
these treasures which dominate the museums of Berlin, New York, London, Rome, Paris
and other cities. The moral claim to these treasures have never been higher and Nigeria, in
conjunction with other owners of stolen treasure, including nations like Italy, must now
establish the ability to secure these treasures and preserve them in perpetuity.
5. There is no established Nigerian cuisine. Nigeria, by itself has extraordinary claims to great
diversity and originality in food and the art of Nigerian food is deep and alive. Nigerian
food must be developed using the same ideas, using new ingredients, and developed into a
cuisine in itself.
6. It is also important to study Nigerian history to determine the values that have served our
people and cultures for centuries so that these can be promoted and developed even in these
modern times so that these values can be combined into a unique Nigerian identity which
combines all the values we have borrowed and help create consistency as we push for
progress.

Vision Nine: How to create an open and plural society.

1. Dealing with the sharia issue. Sharia may be in Nigeria to stay given the fact that reversing
it where it has been passed may unnecessarily heat up the system. It can be dealt with in
other ways by addressing the ways it threatens an open, pluralistic and secular society. One
way is to give every single individual the right to chose whether to be subjected to “sharia
laws” or not. This has to be determined at the point of law enforcement, where it is being
determined whether an individual's actions have violated the “Sharia” codes or not.
Another way would be to designate areas in the “Sharia states” where the Islamic code
would not be applicable. Finally, all “Sharia” law cases must be subject not only to the
“Sharia” court of appeals but ultimately to the supreme court.
2. Repealing the indigene laws and preventing the discrimination against Nigerian citizens on
basis of origin.
3. Rebuffing the notion that Nigeria is a multi-religious state, a meaningless term. Getting rid
of state sponsorship of religion. The most obvious forms are the sponsorship of the
pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mecca. There are so many others and these have to be
removed.
4. Another way to promote and ensure openness in Nigeria would be to balance development
to ensure constant flow of people, goods and services across the nation in a seamless and
easy manner.
5. Another way to promote an open society would be to protect the rights of non-indigenes of
towns and cities to buy land and rent property at the going market rates.
6. Passing laws that allow adherents of minority religions to observe their religious holidays.
7. Reinstating the universities to their original status as open and “free” institutions in
repudiation of the growing encroachment on the status of the universities.
8. A major campaign to eliminate secret societies in Nigeria using methods similar to those
 used in the US and other places.

Vision Ten:How to spark off the industrial revolution in Nigeria.

1. Borrow and copy the Korean model of the chaebols, and enable these companies to cut
their teeth in heavy industries while at the same time developing capability in organic
industries.
2. Create local fabrication capability.
3. Readjust the structure of the Nigerian economy from the colonial structure that it basically
still has. The Nigerian economy is still oriented towards taking value outside Nigeria in its
rawest form just like in colonial days. For example, it is a fact that colonial policies made
Nigeria a net food importer. It is necessary to roll-back the factors built into the system by
colonialism which created this. Post-Independence Nigerian governments have largely just
taken the colonial template for running a country for their use without readjustments.
4. Better application of technology to basic tasks like food processing, cloth making, etc.
5. Promotion of Nigeria's own technologists by the government using them and creating
consortia of local firms if necessary to creation of capability.
6. Aggressive promotion of processes, products, prototypes etc. which have been created by
Nigeria's universities, research institutions and government agencies, selling them to
companies or funding start-ups based on these.
7. Lock out the informal economy which is distortedly large and influential. In fact, it is
believed that the large informal economy imposes costs on the Nigerian productive sector
by creating an artificial scarcity of long-term loanable funds. In reality, the informal sector
is awash with funds that can create more money and which are loanable. The informal
sector feeds the large import sector as well.
8. Make the control of inflation and upgrading of the value of the Naira into a holy grail until
Nigeria's productive base becomes substantial. This would be very important to ensuring
the availability of long-term funds and the ability of Nigerians and Nigerian firms to
procure foreign capital goods which is necessary in the near term.

Vision Eleven: How to effectively bridge the digital divide with the west.

• By creating points of contact between the digitally left-behind and the world of “ones and
zeroes”.
• By making the right technology choices flowing down from the right policies.
• Government's direct funding of the basic infrastructure needed for digital access.
• Connecting Universities, Research Institutions, and all federal or even state government
educational institutions.
• Affirmative action

Flowing down from the above;

1. Design and implementation of one single platform for e-governance for all levels of the
government which would bring the entire government's transactional base on-line. This
would be followed with schemes allowing transactions to be performed using GSM phones
and on-line. If for example citizens have to pay their children's fees using scratch cards
validated over GSM phones, this would create huge employment for various people from
those selling the cards to those who would buy GSM phones to render this service and
promote the use of the phones. Similarly, if parents had to enrol their children on-line, then
the cybercafes would boom. The whole point is to create contact points and to make more
citizens digital users even if they are initially proxy users.
 2. The government funding cheap nodal access to the Internet into underserved areas creating
opportunities for people to render cheap access to the Internet in a variety of forms ranging
from cybercafes to even school access. This combines affirmative action with the right
technology choices and policy and funding.
3. A policy that would instal one technology facility in every single village in Nigeria whether
it be a telecoms cell site, call centre, cybercafe, rural telephony site or whatever else.

Vision Twelve: How to dramatically expand Nigeria's middle class.

The Middle Class everywhere have the following basic characteristics; Ability to live through non-
productive periods, more choices in terms of access to opportunities particularly as regards
education, child care, skill acquisition and leisure, more stability in family life, access to same
basic social services as the rich, and skilled parents.

Expanding Nigeria's middle class would involve schemes and policies to increase the numbers of
population who have the above characteristics using households as the basis.

1. Promoting especially working class families on the upper margins. We could set an income
threshold and say a family earning x Naira with at least one skilled parent and then
focusing on improving social services in neighbourhoods dominated by such people. In
Lagos for example, such areas would be IBA or Obanikoro. This is very important because
the impacts on such groups are highest. Perhaps because these people are often
underserved for the prices they pay. As an illustration, a family like this would often have
to pay to send their kids to schools in another area since the better schools are private and
are generally not located in the areas in focus. They thus pay a transport premium in
addition to paying a disproportionate percentage of their income on private education.
2. A scheme for people not covered by the Universal Basic Education scheme which are
usually the poorest people who often can not afford getting their kids educated and often
even need the kids for their contributions to family earnings. One way to do this would be
to pay a per diem allowance per child to skilled adults delivering informal skill transfers to
children. This could include artisans training their own or other children but to qualify, the
children could be required to have at least basic primary education with demonstrable
literacy.
3. Pushing a policy of multiskilling policy economywide giving companies incentives to train
their employees in a second skill area. Also giving grants to individuals to acquire second
skills.
4. Improving credit access in the economy enabling economical acquisition of capital goods
like cars, houses, freezers, generators etc.
5. Particularly creating a consumer credit scheme for households with stable addresses with at
least one skilled parent and skills in school.

Vision Thirteen: How to create an effective government.

1. Empirically demonstrate that the vast majority of government policies in the generation since
independence has been designed to favour the few over the many and it is now necessary to
set the standard that each government policy must clearly benefit the majority of Nigerians.
2. There is no way around downsizing the government which is too large for the country's
business. Many of the things the government dabbles in are not needed by the country's
current situation and direction. Most of the employees, though mostly skilled have over years
demonstrated ongoing gross incompetence and redundancy.
 3. A massive increase in wages in the government sector to bring them in line with prices of
goods in the same economy. This would also serve to remove some of the reasons for graft.
4. Remove opportunities for graft by making government decision making data-based and by
automating most of government's business.
5. Creating a central procurement unit for the government which would report to the National
assembly with direct oversight by the Presidency. They would handle the purchase of all
items and services used by the government and would have very clear streamlined fiscal
targets. Picking its board would fall in equal measure to both arms of government but it
would statutorily have some levels of guaranteed independence.
6. Removing the pomp and excessive perks surrounding the largest offices to ensure that people
who want to serve are the ones who get into offices.
7. There are just too many political offices handed by patronage. There are too many special
assistants to special assistants. These must all be eliminated with executive counsel and
assistance coming directly from within the civil service determined by merit.
8. The Civil Service has to begin competing again for the best people. They can even become
the employer of first choice in the economy by always talking to the best people from each
class in each school. They also need to simply and consistently get the best people wherever
they may be.
9. Strengthening the decision making processes within the civil service to give the civil servants
final say if they can support their positions using independent data. Strengthening the
independence of the bureaucracy.
10. Opening government processes and employees to the people. Making government officers
accessible to the people and removing the veil of secrecy, excessive security and
imperviousness that protects bad decision making and unaccountability.
11. A new principle of selecting Ministers and commissioners which would require that all jobs
requiring politics for success be purely political appointments while those jobs requiring
performance and track-record be made purely on the basis of track-record and pedigree. This
would require positions like the Minister of finance or the Head of Government to be
occupied by heavyweight wonks while positions like the Minister of external affairs or
internal affairs would be occupied by politicians.

Vision Fourteen: How to bring the rural poor into the 21st. Century.

1. Redistribution of agricultural land held by the government with support for scalable cash
crops and the formation of cooperatives for joint acquisition and utilisation of fertiliser,
Irrigation, and mechanised implements.
2. Promotion of agri-processing cottage industries for rural people using cheap local
technology with acquisitions financed by micro-credit.
3. New housing developments in rural areas which use cheap materials to create housing to
replace huts and other rural housing. These developments will be built with sports
facilities, television and video screening centres and cybercafes, rural telephony sites and
libraries.
4. Modernising traditional institutions like the traditional rulership, elders' congresses etc. to
bring them in sync with the thrust of mainstream society. No Village left behind.
5. One important strategy would be to initially focus on turning around urban areas and
getting their economies going. Once this reaches some level of self-sustainability, the
government can then give long term priority to developing rural areas.

Vision Fifteen: How to deal with religious divides.

1. Dealing with the 'sharia” issue.

 2. Accepting multi-religiousity and teaching tolerance in schools as part of the socialisation of
kids.

Vision Sixteen: How to achieve food sufficiency.

1. The technology that Nigeria needs for processing of food is available locally and cheap.
Nigeria is very much close to sufficiency already and can very easily achieve both
sufficiency and even competitive advantage in some foods.
2. Attracting investment into agriculture, utilising Nigeria's abundance of agricultural land.

Vision Seventeen: How to bridge the gap between town and gown.

The gap exists because the value chain around the universities and research institutes is broken. In
particular, there is very poor definition of what value they should be rendering to whom, with
which funds, using which resources, in which manner etc. Their relationships with their
stakeholders are poorly defined and very poor.

1. Decide with the universities who their customer would be and what value they would
render. The customer really ought to be employers who need a steady steam of well-trained
people.
2. The way they get funded should decide what value they ought to render. For example, if
the current system persists in which the government covers funding, the value the
universities ought to render is to deliver a steady stream of quality graduates. More
important would be to deliver a steady stream of excellent research of the basic type
leaving industry to do their own R & D. It might actually be better to have the universities
become like a grand R & D department for the economy, fixing practical problems faced
by industry.
3. Fix the issue of funding. In Nigeria's case, the best funding formula would be for the
government to pay the bills of students getting in on merit while others coming in on
discretionary lists would be supported with student loans, and payment from parents,
guardians and other sponsors. It would be desirable to have the research activities in the
universities financed by the private sector with all issues of accountability and ROI fixed.
4. Nigerian Research Exchange would be an organisation that liaises with the private sector to
determine industry research needs and then coordinate with the private sector to get
funding for the research and find the intellectual resources to complete research projects.
5. Using intelligence drawn from Nigerians going on sabbatical in universities abroad to
determine gaps in curriculum and research direction while formalising and structuring the
knowledge.
6. The establishment of a central database for research findings in Nigeria.
7. Creation of a central database with all the research findings of the research institutes in the
last 80 years with all the applications for them specified and specific information about
resources needed to utilise them.
8. Create a system of funding ventures arising from the university system and the research
institutes.

Vision Eighteen: How Nigeria can lead the first modern “black” civilisation.

1. Become the international voice for black African issues. Everywhere black people are
oppressed, killed, maimed or repressed, Nigeria should become the defender who is willing
to rally the world for action or take action.
 2. Nigeria itself becomes the world's solid black democracy fulfilling its potential by
remaining a stable. Peaceful and prosperous democracy.
3. Nigeria should make its foreign policy goals the same as black goals by doing more and
more business with black countries.
4. Nigeria to become a haven for the best black minds.
5. Creating policies that place Nigeria at the centre of contemporary black culture; music,
movies, fashion, painting, sculpture, writing and everything else.
6. Massive push for indigenous technological development.
7. Nigeria's government to make policy and conduct governance as if it was doing so for the
whole of Africa. In other words, the right language and mindset.

Vision Nineteen: How to draw on our Western and Arabian heritage while leveraging our
traditional values in the creation of a competitive national culture, while protecting our
culture and create a system of value reference points.

1. It is impossible for Nigeria to turn away from Western or Arabian culture which have
become ingrained into our way of life. It is possible however to keep studying the aspects
of Western and Arab culture that we want to blend with our own cultures which all have
traits that made them persist through the ages.
2. The commission of a massive study that would identify traditional indigenous values and
identify the critical few values that are relevant to what Nigeria faces in the future by way
of an accepted and and expressed vision of Nigeria looking into centuries. The identified
values must then become part of the socialisation of Nigerians incorporating them into the
teaching of history, languages, business and civics.
3. A massive campaign must be begun to revamp and restore all Nigerian antiquities,
traditional institutions festivals, artefacts and taking steps to cause the reawakening of
Nigerians to the utility and value of these.
4. Encouragement of the bringing of religion-inspired cultural artefacts into secular and
mainstream use. For example, the ability of many Nigerians to speak and read Arabic gives
Nigeria many benefits, just like the speaking of English does. The traditional religions of
Benin and Ife can be a source of tourist revenues if Nigeria can attract Caribbean and South
American adherents of those religions without the stigma many Nigerians would attach to
that.
5. Turn Nigeria into a melting point, a controlled meshing of cultures which if safe would
instantly become a magnet for various people.

Vision Twenty: How to terminate all the ghosts of Nigeria's past.

1. The acceptance of the fact that the North must have assurances given the fact that it has
fewer human and natural resources but was dominant at the onset of colonialism and the
creation. Of Nigeria
2. The acceptance that all people have the right to receive the most benefit from their own
resources.
3. A negotiated settlement with all previous looters, coup-plotters, military collaborators and
enemies of past society allowing them amnesty in exchange for them backing out of the
political system.
4. Wage a war against mediocrity as an enemy of merit and the creator of a dysfunctional
Nigerian state.
5. The socialisation of Nigerian youth to recognise cultural and ethnic differences but to be
able to make decisions and function in society without recourse to ethnicity.
6. The implementation of the Oputa Panel recommendations and a follow-up commission to
 monitor the cases well into the future.

Vision Twenty-one: How to get stolen and expatriated money back into the Nigerian
economy.

1. Legislation giving protection to indigenous Nigerian companies in preferred sectors like

the Oil, banking, telecoms and power while at the same time putting higher tax liabilities
on Nigerians who maintain the bulk of their wealth abroad while at the same time
prosecuting many people for crimes committed over time and making it clear that if those
monies are brought back to Nigeria by way of investment, crimes can be overlooked.
2. Direct negotiation with the biggest culprits granting concessions for repatriation.
3. Granting official seals or charters to products of companies with the bulk of ingredients
and spare parts coming from within Nigeria with special incentives given.
4. Dealing with the other non-corruption causes of capital flight like instability, low domestic
capital formation, unstable currency, and pure exploitation.
5. Political pressure on foreign companies who routinely repatriate profits by encouraging the
leaving of profits in the Nigerian economy.

Vision Twenty-two: How to develop an effective financial system.

1. Consolidating on the benefits of banking consolidation by engendering the movement of

money and wealth out of the informal economy into the formal sector.
2. Promoting the use of banking instruments like cheques, credit cards and ATM cards etc.
3. Insurance sector consolidation and the encouragement on wider risk coverage.
4. Promoting the mobilisation of and protecting pension funds particularly by the
institutionalisation of pension fund management.

Vision Twenty-three: How to protect our culture & create our own comprehensive system of
values reference points.

Vision Twenty-four:How to develop citizens.

1. Teaching civics in school and making citizenship a priority in socialisation. Teaching

children how the Nigerian system should work, teaching ideals and glorifying the fatherland.
Creating the ideal citizen through instruction thus imparting knowledge of rights, ethics,
obligations, service and responsibility and all ideals Nigeria wants in its young.
2. Reinstating pride in service by reforming the military and creating a new military that is
civilised, disciplined and servile. Reforming all uniformed services and honouring their
work by the protection of their welfare, the reward of their work and the protection of their
dignity.
3. Making the government work for the people in ways that people see that the system gives
them a chance to exercise their stake in it. Responding to, and protecting the aspirations of
the Nigerian.
4. Promoting a true meritocracy where the good get far and the best rule the roost.
5. Protecting minority rights and guaranteeing everyone a seat at the table with equal forks and
knives in the carving of the National Cake.
6. Protecting the benefits and pride of citizenship by creating and sustaining a system that
stands for the “little guy” and creates equal opportunity.
Vision Twenty-five: How to improve access to justice.

1. Creating Offices of the Public Defender which would advise citizens about their rights and
help connect them to resources for seeking redress from perceived oppression.
2. Guaranteeing the constitutional right to petition the solicitor general who would be
mandated to take on every petition to give a best case attempt to “right the wrongs” that are
presented to this office.
3. Comprehensive review of Nigerian laws to take out draconian laws, outdated clauses,
activate redundant protections, and improve the legal system.
4. Reform of the prison system, building new prisons, creating a system of constant review of
pending cases and the welfare and status of inmates.
5. Improvement of legal knowledge within the police and security forces. Reforming police
procedures to remove or continuously reduce opportunities for abuse.
6. Facilitating the work of public coroners to perform mandatory investigation into every
death to determine cause and making local government officials criminally liable for
unclaimed corpses and the failure to establish cause of death for deceased Nigerians.
7. Controlling the proliferation of arms in Nigeria by removing undocumented arms or
otherwise allowing everybody the right to bear arms.
8. Reforming the courts to create more civil, customary and small-claims courts while
continuously upgrading judicial procedures to create more transparency, speed and equity
in court processes.
9. Correct historical injustices dating from the time of the formation of Nigeria either true the
truth and reconciliation process or the creation of a special ombudsman to address such
issues.
10. Removing double standards in the application of the law by guaranteeing some basic
principles in all laws enforced by all levels of government.
11. Staunchly dealing with high-level crimes and corruption by making a clear, consistent and
extensive demonstration of equality before the law and supremacy of laws.

Vision Twenty-six: How to define Nigeria's foreign policy.

1. Comprehensive review of Nigeria's foreign policy so far to match the costs so far to the
benefits.
2. Defining Nigeria's interest in line with Nigeria's vision and plans for the future.
3. Strongly push Nigeria's non-alignment to expand ties with countries across world divides
and blocs.
4. Tying Nigeria's foreign policy ends to the ends of the black world, expanding beyond
Africa into the diaspora.
5. Negotiating freedom of international travel for Nigerians by committing to take
responsibility for Nigerians living off the public charge in foreign countries.
6. Dramatically improve Nigeria's relations with African countries by attracting concessions
which allow Nigerians easy access to African countries and facilitating inter- and intra-
regional transportation

Vision Twenty-seven: How to define Nigeria's military policy.

1. By building on the fact that Nigeria has peaceful neighbours, drawing down on military
size, building up defence industries to create technology intensiveness in warcraft and
making military training compulsory for the youth and maintaining a reserve force.
2. Seriously re-evaluating Nigeria's role in international peacekeeping which has drawn it
 very little benefits over the years. Committing only to peacekeeping in neighbouring
countries, prevention of the killing of black people and counties where Nigeria has a high
economic stake.
3. Promoting and expanding ECOMOG 's capabilities.
4. Formalising Nigeria's principles of non-aggression, non-alignment and multilateralism.

Vision Twenty-eight: How to develop tourism in Nigeria.

1. Guaranteeing safety of lives and property.

2. Creating an effective road network and transportation system.
3. Bringing Nigeria into the mainstream of world consciousness through Nigerians in the
diaspora . One idea to achieve this is a bring someone to visit program giving a small airline
rebate to any guest of a foreign -resident Nigerian.
4. Establishing Nigeria as the centre of black culture by building on its huge influence on black
music, thought, arts and science.
5. Fill the knowledge and curiousity gap of Westerners about Africa. They generally believe
that Africa is fascinating and dangerous but really know very little about what there is to see
in Africa. One good way to do this is through media, particularly the creation of media that
can replace BBC, AFP, Reuters,VOA & CNN as the voices of Africa.

Vision Twenty-nine: How to create Nigerian literature into an institution that creates, ideas,
synthesise ideas, propagate them and permeate the minds of Nigerians.

1. Jump-start Nigeria's publishing industry. One way would be for the Federal Government to
as a first step buy publishing rights to the textbooks used in Nigeria and then award these
rights to local publishers who meet certain criteria like the literary expertise of its
management, number of publishable works, use of Nigerian technology in publishing and
quality of works it holds. The idea is to share the financial risks of publishing and
incentivise a whole industry.
2. Making the development of local publishing technology a key component of the country's
technological development plans.
3. Fostering a Nigerian literary institute which would develop literary standards, regulate (but
not censor) the publishing industry and recognise excellence in various dimensions.
4. A massive drive to turn every literate Nigerian into a regular reader.

Vision Thirty: How to reform the press and return to a free press.

1. A new code of journalistic ethics that explicitly acts against the “brown envelope
syndrome” that has seriously threatened press objectivity and independence.
2. Act to encourage primary collection of news among Nigerian news media in place of the
overreliance on agency news and press conferences.
3. Development of the business model to cheaply deliver truly national newspapers,
delivering the same news across the country everyday.

Vision Thirty-one: How to remove money from politics.

1. Public funding of the electioneering process of all parties meeting set criteria with the
 system working through the post-payment of receipted and competitively incurred
expenses.
2. A law requiring that the account statements of all parties to be published in the newspapers
every quarter.
3. Setting caps on the amounts of money that can be raised by a party and tying it to
membership such that each party could be allowed, for example, to raise 3000 Naira per
registered member. Membership would be defined as active members who attend the
general convention of each party. For logistical purposes, state conventions could suffice.
4. Setting very stringent conditions on the violations of electoral rules regarding finance
stipulating outright suspension from the ballots or other penalties as might be compatible
with the constitution.
5. Strict enforcement of money-laundering and other financial/electoral laws that prevent
many of the nefarious actions of using money to corrupt the vote.
6. Giving individuals the locus standi to take legal action against people who use money to
corrupt votes.
7. Deal with the questions of piracy and intellectual property protection and establish even the
arts as part of the economy.

Vision Thirty-two: How to remove the ethical gap that exists in Nigerian public life.

1. Pushing for a renaissance in ethics by changing individual lives and using the media and
other methods to demonstrate the aggregated costs of failure to society.
2. Bringing back Nigerian politics to the level of ideology and vision and making politics
unprofitable for the unethical and corrupt.
3. Getting all Nigerians passing through the Nigerian school system to commit to a national
code of ethics.
4. Requiring all industrial and trade unions to induct their members with codes of ethics and
making the violation of these actionable in court.
5. Enlisting religious institutions in the drive to overcome unethicality. Promoting
meritocracy in Nigeria by creating a system in which each individual's track record is
within the public sphere.

Vision Thirty-three: How to develop a transportation backbone for Nigeria.

1. A plan that commits to connect every village to the national primary road network even if
the built roads are mere dirt roads.
2. Development of the railways by relying on Nigerian technology to build them with parts
that can not be made in Nigeria imported.
3. Eliminating danfo services countrywide due to its inefficiencies and finding a way to
preserve the capital of the danfo owners.
4. Multifaceted approach to designing transport systems for urban areas combining various
transportation means.
5. Data-driven approach to the planning of roads, traffic and transportation system interfaces.
6. Proactive, long term planning of transportation systems.
7. Ensuring that the transportation system can conserve energy while moving people and
cargo very cheaply.

Vision Thirty-four: How to develop a fair fiscal and revenue-generation arrangement for
Nigeria.

1. Removing all laws, policies and business models that centralise the exploitation of
resources, especially natural resources.
2. Following domestic best practices in revenue generation for other levels of government
which, so far have involved, automating collection, collection of collectable revenue.
3. Enshrinement of the derivation principle in revenue generation and distribution in Nigeria
by acknowledging that revenue is best generated and monitored at the local level of
government and this arrangement best serves equity.
4. The actual collection of taxes, duties and other collectable revenues by the Federal
Government while adapting progressive tax regimes and giving tax breaks to support social
security at the individual level.
5. Simplification of Nigeria's tax code and the unification of the entire tax regime applicable
across Nigeria at all levels.
6. Driving the federal government to the level where tax and duties are the major revenue
earner for the government as opposed to what has been the norm in Nigeria. This reform is
necessary given the general knowledge that the model of oil and gas industry adopted in
Nigeria is unsustainable and inequitable and that oil would dry up in decades anyway.
7. Retain the greatest fraction of collected revenue at the local level with the bulk actually
going into village and town councils.
8. Adopt the principle that communities and individuals generate revenue and acknowledge
that the Federal Government by itself does not have any natural right to revenue so earned
by communities and individuals.
9. Strengthening the way communities and individuals actually generate revenue and ensure
that this organic approach is the basis on which private enterprise in the Nigerian economy
is based.
10. Protect the minority rights of areas that do not generate adequate revenues by ensuring that
richer areas take on the burden of sustaining these areas. In other words, majority rule but
minority rights.

Vision Thirty-five: How to capitalise on Sino-Indian goals of exporting technology.

1. Nigeria has to aim to gain “the best of both worlds” by maintaining its standing with the
Western Oil companies while at the same time, being able to gain technology from the
Sino-Indian bloc. One way to do this is to protect the large oil companies but make it easier
for Sino-Indian companies to acquire Nigerian companies who are protected by
indigenisation policies if technology transfer is involved.
2. Creating the environment that allows for the creation of huge companies based on
technology transfer in exchange for capital.
3. Leverage Nigeria's economic power in Africa by using Nigerian companies with Sino-
Indian technology to allow Chinese and Indian companies into African markets.
4. Allowing Sino-Indian multinationals access into the big ticket segments of the Nigerian
economy and setting strict requirements as time goes by specifying levels of domestic
R&D that must be done by these companies as well as setting standards for technology
transfer and turnaround.
5. Foreign policy is also important in this respect and it would very much depend on Nigeria's
ability to remain non-aligned despite huge pressure to align with America's foreign policy
thrust.

Vision Thirty-six: How to reinstate the privilege of Nigerian citizenship.

 1. The first and most obvious is to restore the benefits of citizenship by establishing a clear
set of benefits to be derived from Nigerian citizenship.
2. Active support of Nigerians in the diaspora in the quests of their lives abroad.
3. Negotiating for and insisting on dignified treatment of Nigerians by foreign authorities as
the precondition for diplomatic ties with every country.
4. Create a system for truly rewarding the people who truly serve and create benefits for
Nigeria and its people.
5. Achieve and then leverage national competence in sports and arts as an easy means to
shore up Nigerians' pride in Nigeria.
6. Make Nigeria the pride of the black world by achieving basic distinction in political
reforms, surging economic growth, the arts, tourism, foreign affairs and politics. Make
Nigeria decent in the eyes of the world and make it look like the best of the black world. It
is all about perception.
7. Absolutely protect the security and human rights of every single Nigerian citizen in
Nigeria.

Vision Thirty-seven: How to leverage the economic power of Nigerians in the diaspora and of
other blacks in the diaspora.

1. Negotiate with the multilateral institutions to create a Nigeria diaspora fund managed by
the IFC which can be invested in new ventures, Nigerian treasury bills and Nigerian
stocks.. The Nigerian government can subsequently be able to draw up on as loans for
financing capacity building projects.
2. Create an industry which simply targets the delivery of services and products to Nigerians
abroad and using them as a base for Nigerian companies to enter foreign markets.
3. Remove taxes on money repatriations from Nigerians abroad.
4. Enable the use of assets held by Nigerians abroad as collateral for obtaining financing in
Nigeria.
5. Grant them a say in the decision making process at home.
6. Negotiate with Western powers to obtain concessions relating to businesses either targeting
Nigerians abroad or businesses owned by Nigerians abroad which have dealings in Nigeria.
7. Targeting rich and influential members of the black diaspora from other countries and
granting them business concessions in Nigeria. The goal of this is to establish Nigeria as an
investment destination for black people. This would also push tourism in Nigeria and
increase the number of global voices talking in Nigeria's favour internationally.

Vision Thirty-eight: How to reverse the “brain-drain”.

1. Increase the minimum wage and constantly enact measures that would boost productivity.
Wages in Nigeria are too low to keep skilled people in Nigeria. While Nigerian wages can
not be at Western levels, it can surely be at subsistence levels.
2. Jump-start the Nigerian offshoring industry.
3. One approach is to aim to obtain as much of the economic activities of Nigerians, Africans
and blacks in the diaspora by fostering a whole industry that delivers goods and services to
these people.
4. Insist that all aid and development programs in Nigeria be filled by Nigerians. There is no
value to aid programs that bring highly paid foreign nationals to do development work in
Nigeria when there are capable Nigerians who can take these jobs.
5. One counter-intuitive approach is to create global mobility for the best-qualified people
and creating financial incentives that encourage them to make a base in Nigeria even while
 working all over the world. The incentives could include help financing houses and
acquiring houses in Nigeria, grants for skills acquisition, lower tax rates, pension incentives
etc. The logic is that since most people leaving Nigeria are leaving for financial benefit
arising from the greater number of opportunities available abroad, if there are financial
bases for making Nigeria a base while working in global consulting for example, people
would do so.
6. To really inform and educate Nigerians about life abroad to bring reality into the
“romantic” views of living abroad that many Nigerians have.
7. Use Nigerian talent to develop Nigeria by creating some grand and audacious projects to be
built using Nigerian technology and capabilities even if it may be necessary to have foreign
consultants.

Vision Thirty-nine: How to get our country back from the stooges of imperialism.

1. Establish empirically that Nigeria has been a slave to imperialism which, aided by gross
failure of the Nigerian state, has been a major underdevelopment factor.
2. Establish Nigerian interests intellectually and create a consensus on these.
3. Establish a popular vision for Nigeria, publicise it widely and educate Nigerians at all
levels in their various groups and segments what each of these portend for them so that
they have a standard with which to measure the performance of their institutions and
leaders.
4. A popular movement. It has been said that whatever would change Nigeria would be a
revolution, our goal is just simply to ensure that it is a peaceful and silent revolution.
5. Obtain all looted money and disgrace the Nigerians who make money in Nigeria and chose
to leave the money abroad, the factor which has been Nigeria's death knell and the
perpetrators of which have been those who have adopted policies that favoured foreign
states and institutions infinitely more than the Nigerian people.
6. Readjust the structure of the Nigerian economy from the colonial structure that it basically
still has. The Nigerian economy is still oriented towards taking value outside Nigeria in its
rawest form just like in colonial days. For example, it is a fact that colonial policies made
Nigeria a net food importer. It is necessary to roll-back the factors built into the system by
colonialism which created this. Post-Independence Nigerian governments have largely just
taken the colonial template for running a country for their use without readjustments.

Vision Forty:How to achieve emancipation from neo-colonisation and neo-imperialism.

1. Formally acknowledge that this exists and has been a factor. Consequently study how it
works and dismantle the frameworks and structures that enable it.
2. Non-aggressive but very firm foreign policy that establishes very clearly, using solid
economic data, Nigerian interests and where there are opportunities for mutual benefits.
3. Renounce foreign aid. Nigeria does not need foreign aid which has only existed to create
and sustain dependence. The only exception would be where aid resources are directed at
individuals and not communities, government and institutions.
4. Dissociate from organisations that were set up for the sole purpose of extending 3 rd. World
dependence and push for the creation of alternative organisations to achieve this end (e.g.
ACP).
5. Resist cultural dumping which is a term that describes where cheap news, TV programs,
books, films etc. are imported into Nigeria without payment of duties and and therefore
crowd out competing Nigerian programs. The idea is not to resist foreign culture but to
regard it as an import and a creator of demand for foreign goods and treat is as the
economic phenomenon that it is.
Vision Forty-one: How to create a Nigeria that westerners can truly live in.

For Nigeria to develop, the owners of capital must be able to live in Nigeria. We need their money
and we need their money in Nigeria.

1. Deal with security and policing issues by particularly continuing with the very good track-
record that Nigeria has had with the security of expatriates.
2. Aim to keep every single expatriate that comes into Nigeria by offering incentives for
settlement like creating safe havens even within Nigeria. In other words, create some
places that are better than the rest of Nigeria and safe such that expatriates can maintain the
same lifestyles they would lead in a western country and assistance towards settlement.
3. Recognise and project non-indigenous Nigerians of Indian, Syrian, Lebanese and other
ancestries which have had a long history as settled people in Nigeria.
4. Project the face of modern Nigeria and help foreigners see that there are two Nigerias, one
that is modern and westernised and one that is not. Enrich the attraction by offering a mix.
5. Make one particular expatriate safe haven in Nigeria as the base for expatriates working in
the oil sector and other industries in West Africa and thus building on any successes that
may be achieved in the drive to make Nigeria an economic hub.

Vision Forty-two: How to stop racism and sexism in Nigeria.

1. Dismantle the racist and discriminatory practices of multinationals in Nigeria particularly

relating to discrimination in favour of white people and foreigners. Create a public
ombudsman to deal with this issue.
2. Disabuse Nigerian minds of the notion of being inferior to Caucasians and other lighter
skinned people.
3. Pass and enforce legislation protecting the reproductive, work, physical and spiritual rights
of women in Nigeria and thus allowing more women access to the same opportunities as
are available to men.

Vision Forty-three: How to protect our environment and achieve sustainability.

1. Review compensation rules for environmental damage and create a strong monitoring and
correction machinery.
2. Commission a comprehensive study of the Nigerian environment, particularly in areas
most threatened by human activity and determine the specific threats, objectives and
approaches.
3. One very important thing to do is to aim to formalise traditional agricultural practices like
fallow methods etc.
4. Use the same model used for allocating other scarce resources for allocating adverse use of
the environment and auction off use of the environment, whether for logging, reclamation
for agriculture or for the mining of mineral resources. In other words, companies could pay
upfront for whichever of their activities adversely affect the environment. A manufacturer
could for example pay for each cubic centimetre of nitrous oxide it releases into the
environment. Having an accurate calibration system nationwide would be a key issue but
also important is to allow start-ups a free pass by waiving fees for their first years or
 allowing deferment of payment.
5. Comply with the Kyoto protocol.
6. Despite being an energy-rich country with less need for energy than the nations of the
Northern hemisphere, it is imperative for Nigeria to already make energy conservation and
clean fuels a priority.
7. Ensure that mass transit systems are created that make public transport preferable to public
transport.
8. Create effective programs for renewing the parts of the Nigerian environment that are
renewable. Examples are trees, green spaces and marine life, among others.
9. An urgent program of urban “greenification” to create truly garden cities.
10. Shore up the national park system and work for continuous improvement in their
capability.
11. Creation of a recycling system and also a system for disposal of non-renewable waste
especially oils and corrosive materials.

Vision Forty-four:How to become a world leader in sports and the arts.

1. Every child in every Nigerian school must, at all levels, play at least one sport or game.
2. Consequently, every community must be provided with government recognised coaches
and instructors who would develop a nationwide program for youth sports and their
delivery.
3. Massive investment in building sports facilities in every Nigerian community starting with
the urban areas where land is scarce and fields are most lacking.
4. Provide equipment for youth sports in every school providing balls, nets, and other
paraphernalia.
5. A national athletes bread kitchen program which would create government subsidised food
kitchens across the nation with exclusive access to individuals who meet certain standards
in their sporting careers. Such individuals would be individuals of every age who
participate in community or school sports and are registered nationally as having met those
standards.
6. Helping the establishment of domestic gym equipment manufacturers and build an industry
of public gyms in every neighbourhood.
7. Channel the passion of Nigerians for football by fixing the football association and making
it capable of delivering consistent international success.
8. Build on Nigeria's natural advantages, for example in training long-distance runners among
the Fulani in the highlands, swimmers of the riverine Ijaw, etc.
9. Help create a sports industry in Nigeria by promoting successful business models for
commercial football as a priority. Aim to attract investment in this industry and concede
the government-owned stadia to individuals, to help create opportunities for successful
television coverage of live football and
10. Use churches and other religious organisations as to promote sports in Nigeria by enlisting
the organised religious bodies in carefully designed schemes. This way, deeply religious
Nigerians to combine a healthy spiritual life with healthy bodies. This way, the organising
ability of these organisations and their wealth of resources can be tapped.
11. Reform the sports associations by cleaning out the jobbers and political appointees who
dominate them in favour of people whose livelihoods and lifestyles represent each specific
sport.

Vision Forty-five: How to solve the housing problem.

1. Remove the artificial scarcity of built houses nationwide by making government-owned

 companies the competitor of private owners who dominate a market that has functioned
like an oligopoly.
2. A rent to own business model offered by local or urban government-owned housing
companies which would build, rent out apartments and then deem the rents paid by a tenant
for two to five years as a down payment for a mortgage which the government owned
company subsequently assists the individual with getting.
3. Channel long-term money into the construction industry and use legislation to remove
practices geared at short-term recovery of building investments like demand for 2-year
rents, etc.
4. Decent one-bedroom apartments as a building model which would be an improvement on
the rented room
5. Hostel system for young people who would not mind sharing their living spaces for lower
housing costs and reasonable living standards, i.e. good location, amenities like satellite
TV, recreational facilities, group transport and shuttle services etc.
6. Rebuilding homesteads and villages by helping the rural poor build new homes out of
cheap materials with the idea that even very modest modern houses are better than huts,
shacks and mud houses.

Vision Forty-six: How to tap the Nigerian potential.

1. Recognise that the greatest Nigerian potential is the infinite creative power of every
Nigerian to create enduring value using resources in its environment and subsequently
subject every government or corporate policy to the standard that each policy must satisfy
this objective and advance the ability of Nigerians to do this.
2. Make the government effective such that N1 delivers multiples of N1 value to the country,
its citizens or its environment.
3. Leave no resource unutilised or underutilised.
4. Achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
5. Teach every Nigerian child and ensure that each child excels in at least one thing.
6. Search and dig deep within our history, our environment and our culture to find the
confluence of Nigerian cultures that is optimal and world-beating.
7. Strive towards nationalism as a national priority and create true citizens of a utile state.
8. Ensure that all government and corporate (corporate refers to any group) actions always
aim to deliver benefit to the majority.
9. Eliminate poverty from the face of Nigerian earth by delivering good nutrition to all.
10. Create systems that learn, iterate and continually improve autonomously.

Vision Forty-seven: How to achieve social security in Nigeria.

1. Make the Nigerian extended family system the basis of social security by enabling
individuals to take care of the poor, infirm, incapacitated and incapable of the society who
are nearest to them and which they are responsible for or obliged to.
2. Ensure that social security schemes created by government do not in any way detract from
the ability of the state or its citizens to achieve their economic goals.
3. Base social security on mass buying and expenditure but leave its operations under
autonomous and quasi-market based structures.
4. Tally the cost of social security to each individual's economic power. In other words,
progressive principles.
5. Use social security to create economic opportunities in ways such as ensuring that
unemployment benefits are mostly expended on getting the unemployed single mother a
job, while the benefit her kid receives for being the child of an unemployed single mother
 goes to ensuring that the child can attend school and develop normally.
6. Strengthen and also use communities for creating and delivering social security.

Vision Forty-eight: How to create universal education in Nigeria.

1. Commit 20-25% of government expenditure to education.

2. Base spending on two components; a shared goods component and a per-student
component, such that each individual receives equal coverage from the state.
3. Give communities power in education and create ways or formalising, regulating and
improving informal education.
4. Make education compulsory and prosecute people whose children are not getting educated.
5. Give equal educational opportunities to children of both sexes.
6. Make teachers out of as many unemployed but educated youths as is possible.
7. Create quality assurance mechanisms in the delivery and formulation of education.
8. A multifaceted approach that could combine primary health care, child nutrition, education
and poverty eradication into one single scheme. For example, children could get one
nutritious free meal at school as well as primary health care while their mothers can get
access to micro-credit through the parents-teachers associations.
9. Pool school resources for big facilities. For example, many schools in an area could share
one big and standard laboratory complex.
10. Adjust the curriculum to deal with current and real societal problems while also teaching
more science, achieving universal excellence in language and maths and focusing on social
skills delivery.

Vision Forty-nine: How to establish a meritocracy in Nigeria.

1. Establish a system in which the transitions that mark an individual's life are marked by
merit, where the best finish first.
2. Reform university admissions nationwide such that only the best students go to
Universities.
3. A true merit recognition scheme at the national level such that only the people who
contribute the most get honoured.
4. Enshrine merit into government appointments.
5. Create strong laws against nepotism and make a law criminalising the appointment of
people who have a track record of being incompetent into positions of authority.
6. Establish national standards for measuring performance in every field and sphere and
create benchmarks for all institutions and corporate bodies.
7. Eliminate rampantness and impunity in Nigerian corruption and return it to being
something people do and hide.

Vision Fifty: How to create a definition of freedom that we all agree with.

1. Some of the world's biggest conflicts in the 100 years between 1905-2005 have been about
differences in definition of freedom and the sharing of rights and obligations between
citizens and their states. This has been playing out within Nigeria and remains unsolved. It
is one of the most fundamental issues facing any nation. To resolve this in Nigeria, there is
no alternative to a national conference.

Vision Fifty-one: How to make sport a multi-billion dollar Nigerian industry.

1. Designate it a priority industry acknowledging Nigeria's competitive advantage in sports

 which arises from having 130 million people, the eighth most populous country in the
world.
2. Seeking foreign investment in sporting ventures like a professional football league, and
other professional leagues.
3. Mobilise funds from the betting, pools, lotto and allied industries for developing sports.
4. Develop a critical number of world-class facilities in the most viable sports.
5. Aim to make Nigeria
6. Remove NTA's monopoly regarding coverage by pushing the formation of another
television network for sports coverage.
7. Foster the creation of a sporting equipment industry in Nigeria to serve a nationwide
program making it compulsory for all school-age youths to participate in at least one game.
8. Create a truly competitive structure for every sport or game tying the fates of sport owners
and sponsors to sporting success.
9. Development of clear national standards in every sport and game and make the search ever
better, stronger, faster, higher, further, etc. the focus of Nigeria's sporting community.
10. Develop the very best Nigerian sporting youths in a “gifted people” program and
constantly help the next best get to better facilities abroad. The perfect counter-balance to
this is to change policies as the Nigerian sports industry starts to grow.

Vision Fifty-two: How to protect our freedom(s).

1. Educate every citizen how his rights are protected and can be enforced.
2. Create state mechanisms for redressing abuses of liberties.
3. Reform all our institutions such that they operate on the principles and uphold the values
that may be identified as Nigeria's core values and principles.
4. Empower civil society groups and create an office of the solicitor-general whose job is to
use government tools to uphold the rights of citizens.
5. Create a system to deliver consistently free and fair elections.
6. Protect “whistle-blowers” from victimisation by creating a special office or commission
which would monitor their post whistle-blowing lives and careers to ensure they are not
victimised and afford them special security if possible.
7. Create a civil police force and make provisions to protect abuse of the police by the
political system or internal actors.

My Vision for Nigeria

I was born in the 1970s and so I can expect that by the 2040s I would be facing transition from this
life to a post-life. I expect that my children's generation would then be inheriting the Nigerian earth.
A watered Nigerian earth.

My vision for Nigeria at this time is of a strong black nation, an open multicultural society, that has
overcome all the odds against it, whether they are self-inflicted or externally created. I expect an
economic powerhouse at the trigger-point of Africa that is a leading contributor to the world's
output in goods, services, knowledge, people, clean and safe environment and the arts.

I hope that Nigeria can disprove racial inferiority of the black man, and create a true indigenous
civilisation drawing resources from everywhere to tackle its world.

My belief is that Nigeria can be united by the 2040s,. I believe that a true African civilisation can
emerge in Nigeria in decades. I believe that in my lifetime I can see the firm foundations of that
firmly pressed into the world.
Nigeria has all the resources it needs to be a great nation. It already is. What it has lacked has been
consensus around a living vision of the nation's direction in history. I believe that my visions,
beliefs and efforts, in conjunction with those of all my fellow visioneers, would be the sufficient
condition for success.

I therefore not only expect my children to have much better lives than I have, I expect their
compatriots' lives to be better.

I envision social justice, I envision economic justice, the engendering of every Nigerian potential
and the exponential transformation of every energy, matter, time, resource and emotion into
enduring prosperity.

When I envision Nigeria prospering, the prosperity I sense is in the broadest, loosest, most
encompassing sense.

I see a proud people, with their own culture and economy secured in its interaction with the world
and being sustained in cross-dependence with the world.

I see a nation being a hope and refuge, and a beaming beacon to the black world and standing tall,
while being counted in the throng of great nations.

I envision, communities that work, and bind, families that support and sustain, enterprises that
nourish and spread, government that delivers the nation's aspirations and best interests, and a
society that leaves no individual, her creative resources and her material resources without
fulfilment.

Nigeria is best placed to redeem the best African values, the best of Africa's spirit, the best of
Africa's environment and create a new culture and approach to life that enriches others in
enrichment of all and create a system that prospers each person because of the other and not at the
expense of the other.

I want Nigeria to be its best forever, to grow from strength to strength, with perpetual space for its
citizens as long as the world exists. I want to work to make that start to happen in my life time. I
commit to live my life for this ideal and measure my every act against this goal. I call on every
Nigerian to make this same commitment.
OPEN ISSUES