WED, FEBRUARY 27 2019-theG&BJournal- Hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pronounced President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the Presidential Election held on February 23 2019, Nigerians delivered a very long to-do-list to his desk. Most of the items on the list are familiar, mostly broken manifesto promises.
The ruling political party triggered the list; ‘’Now that President Buhari has been re-elected, what would you suggest he should do better or give more attention?’’ the party asked on its twitter handle.
The comment was quickly picked up on social media. ‘’Withdraw discos licence, get Ajaokuta working and create opportunities for growth of business,’’ one Yusuf Y responded quickly, followed by a horde of other responses which emphasised the familiar themes discussed nationwide on a daily basis by analysts and economy watchers-infrastructure, textile industry revival, electricity, job creation and evening the spread of federal appointments.
The coming years, indeed will be a critical test of focus on economy for the veteran Nigerian leader. Business already delivered their wish, saying that after a tortuous 4 years of insecurity headlined by Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen crisis as well as the shaky prospects, what Nigeria requires is to be opened up for serious business as quickly as possible.
It is generally acknowledged that Nigeria had achieved some positive economic activity but improvements in business environment as well as legal and financial guarantees are still required to reassure investors.
‘’The country need to aggressively engage now in bold reforms, notably doing business indicators and the enforcement of contracts,’’ one foreign analyst told theG&BJournal today in Lagos. ‘’The future challenges are industrialisation, governance, and sustainable growth,’’ he noted.
Sustainable growth would include a very resilient financial sector, viable financing solutions for social and infrastructure projects.
There is still a pressing need to get the electricity sector right. If ever there was a time to emphasize competence driven by knowledge more than a political call or sentiment for re-invigorating the nation’s battered electricity sector-this is it. The challenge is making sense of the whole process, finding connection and getting those that understands the complexities to do the job.
Nigeria has managed an average of 4, 000 megawatts of grid-available electricity generation capacity since the sector was privatised in 2010. This is generally viewed as government failure because the federal government is still firmly clutching onto the grids while privatised and government owned generators both still depends the transmission network that are considered broken. All that needs to change and fast too, according those familiar with the sector in Nigeria. The investment that is needed to turn around the sector is huge and they urged the federal government to open further the commercial space for quality private sector-led intervention.
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