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Romanus Okoye
For every one big challenge facing Nigeria, there are possibly more than ten opportunities out there, Professor Charles Soludo said yesterday while delivering a speech entitled,“Re-Designing the Nigerian Economy with New Ideas” at The Platform.
He said that God had blessed Nigeria with everything to be the most prosperous home for the black race and what was needed to unleash the creative geniuses in Nigerians was to design the appropriate institutions to power a 21st century economy without oil.
Soludo said the current National Assembly could choose to do something historic or continue to kick the can down the road, and hopefully a future parliament would come to the rescue. “We have no other country but Nigeria and we must make it work. If God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to put us together thus far, there must be a reason,” he said.
“As Africa deepens its integration (starting with the AfCFTA), I dream of a future United States of Africa, and possibly with Nigeria as its California. I see our huge problems but I focus on the solutions. The choice is ours, and I believe that if we (together) choose to work hard at them, the next Nigeria of our dream is possible. Our thesis is that if you want to change a persisting economic structure, change the underling institutions our experience with the NEEDS vis-à-vis banking recapitalization/consolidation was one case study that showed that to translate the hitherto slogan of private sector-led economy into reality needed a different banking/financial institution.
For the national economy, it will be difficult to have a competitive and prosperous post-oil economy of the future (with additional hundreds of millions of citizens and dwindling land space) with the same legal and institutional foundation designed for consumption of oil rent. You can’t build a 100 storey-building upon a foundation of an old bungalow.”
