The local substitution program of the Government is opening loads of windows of opportunities for investors to tap into in Nigeria. The deliberate efforts to drive homegrown products should elicit Nigerians as they have just been offered a chance to help themselves.
We are not unaware of the poor support Government offers small, medium and large scale industries. The government needs to do more fixing Power, there is a need to have better Transport Infrastructures like Rail, Roads and even the Waterways.
Bottlenecks for registration, certification should be eradicated to fast track, setting up of businesses. Credit should be accessed with ease and interest on it should not be killing.
Nigerians should latch on the little the Government is doing while advocating for more. As it stands with little or no leverage provision from Government. Foreign firms explore to the maximum the 200 Million population, getting measured result therefrom. Aliko Dangote leading the pack with few others are those providing the local option! This is not enough.
We are fond castigating, deriding Dangote who many wrongly refer to as a MONOPOLIST, instead of also exploring and exploiting the potentials the huge market offers. In my view he is just someone who constantly thinks about what to do with 200 million people, he has done so much of this to turn into an “ECONOMIC MONSTER”
There is need for the Government to do more no doubt. While we are driving that. Nigerians should begin, in any form from the small through the medium, start to key into provision of local alternatives for the Nigerian market, which has depended too much for too long on the foreign products, at a huge cost to our fragile Economy.
A long list of products is being consumed in Nigeria by Nigerians. It will be most ideal, if a substantial quantity gets produced or processed by Nigerians. Coming out of the shackles of massive importation to a regime of having the bulk of products emanating from foreign firms on our land is not good enough. It is not enough to have just one man sitting on the board to qualify these foreign firms as indigenous. Local firms has the tendency to protect more Nigerian interest, developing local capacity and skills along the line.
We should be challenged enough to build local concerns to feed the Local Economy.
©Layi Deinde 2019,
Layi Deinde, a public commentator writes from, Ota, Ogun State.
