The Nigeria First Policy, an initiative of President Bola Tinubu administration approved recently for purposes of strengthening the domestic economy and promoting local content is laudable.
Nigeria is currently in desperate search for solutions to alleviate the mass sufferings occasioned by the monumental economic crisis currently facing the country.
It is therefore understandable when the Federal Government announced recently that the policy seeks to foster a new business culture that centers on empowering local industries and reducing dependence on imports. This is a worthwhile initiative if well implemented.
The Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who announced the new policy framework, said it is designed to be implemented through an executive order to ensure its broad application across government agencies.
No doubt, the new policy carries potent seeds of a transformative agenda capable of accelerating Nigeria’s economic revival; however, the problem with policies in Nigeria is that they fizzle away soon after they are launched. In 2015, the CBN’s ban of 43 specific goods from accessing forex in order to promote local production didn’t make the desired impact. It was deemed ineffective in curbing naira depreciation and import dependence. By 2023 CBN lifted the restriction.
Nigeria First could make significant contributions to the economic development of Nigeria especially in areas of increased GDP, increased productivity, increased revenue, job creation and affordable products and services, but the initiative must be backed by coherent planning, effective implementation and measurable outcomes otherwise it would serve as a promising slogan. This policy is one in which its timing is auspicious.
The deepening poverty crisis is everywhere in full display. Food imports are on the increase. A recent World Bank Report says 75.5 percent of rural populations in Nigeria live below the poverty line. Insecurity is rampant, inflation stands at 24.23 percent, and preventable diseases such as malaria, cholera and typhoid are killing thousands of Nigerians annually. Nigeria now has the second highest number of children in the world with 37 percent of children under five suffering from chronic malnutrition.
The WHO also reports that Nigeria accounts for 28 percent of all maternal deaths. This is alarming.
Against this backdrop, an initiative like this becomes imperative for Nigeria’s economic recovery and sustenance of its development. The step to lift Nigeria to a $1 Trillion economy, promised by the current administration would also have begun.
For the policy to succeed, implementation must start from the presidency and spread to the other arms of government – national assembly and the judiciary. The Federal Government must be prudent in spending scarce resources. Procurement of luxury items like exotic cars and other paraphernalia of office which gulp several billions of naira to import must stop.
A number of companies in Nigeria have demonstrated capacity and competence to manufacture almost everything that public servants in both high and low offices need for comfort of office.
For instance Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing, an indigenous automobile company has demonstrated competence and capacity in automobile business for governments at all levels to take a chance on them. Abia and Anambra state governments can attest to this fact. Both states have made it a deliberate policy to procure the vehicular needs of their states from the auto company. The Federal Government and Governors of other states could borrow a leaf.
Strategic implementation of the policy is necessary. Nigeria has a huge market to sustain the explosion of demand that this policy could possibly provoke.
The manufacturing sector needs to be encouraged and the policy as articulated could spur that. The pharmaceutical manufacturing sector for instance is well positioned to contribute significantly in achieving the objectives of the policy.
More demands for Nigerian made medicines, means that pharmaceutical manufacturing companies would expand their production capacities with a direct effect on employment opportunities.
Achieving 70 % percent local manufacture of drugs which the current administration in NAFDAC is working hard to implement would be reinforced by the new policy.
As the Federal Government said, Nigeria First is mirrored after President Donald Trump’s doctrine of America First. Putting country first is emerging strong at the global stage and world leaders who have embraced it are not leaving anything to chance at implementation stage. Therefore, the Federal Government must do everything within its powers to ensure Nigeria First succeeds.
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