KASIMU ALI SPEAKS: Nasarawa State According To My Appraisal

Nasarawa State According To My Appraisal: Part 10
==========27 May, 2019=====

Insecurity is everywhere in Nigeria. Crimes and Criminalities are everywhere in the land. No amount of policemen or soldiers can stop terrorists, kidnappers, ritual killers, Yahoo boys, circumstantial sex workers, ethnic militias, religious bigots. These criminal gangsters were created and bred by Politicians and Elites of Nigeria. And these politicians and elites are criminal Predators of Nigeria's money, our Commonwealth. That is why poverty, unemployment and inequality are still ravaging our country and our people. And unless our Governors and elites  come to consensus to curtail their insatiable greed, and put Nigeria first,  we cannot make significant progress as a Nation and as a Developing Economy.

Lagos State is out of this. Its strategic plans have converted the deadly "Area Boys" to good citizens in full employment and revolutionised its economy and financials which transmuted Lagos to an Emerging City. Ogun State is coming out quite strong with a monthly internal revenue collections of about N5 billion. Industries are springing up with a robust employment possibilities. The Adirei/Kampala Industrial hub I appraised and advised Gov Aliyu Akwe Doma in 2009 (10 years ago) to site, as agreed, in Mada Station, Nasarawa State to be funded by the Bank of Industry has just been similarly commissioned for business by President Buhari in Ogun State. If not for procrastination and indecision, Nasarawa State would have, by now, become a subregional player in the Adirei/Kampala industry with employment not below 150,000 persons. Outgoing Borno Governor Shettima would have been the best Governor in the entire North but for Boko Haram insurgence. Yet, the man is leaving behind, a legacy of an Industrial hub that will create jobs, private wealth and Government revenues. Kebbi State has got it right. The revolution in rice production and processing has transformed the state in the areas of employability, wealth creation to its people, revenue creation to the state purse, eradication of crimes and Criminalities, among others. Many other states are yet to be on track; their Governors are more on the fautlines  of greed, rhetorics and semantics.

WORLD POPULATION & ECONOMY

The 7 (seven) most populous countries in the World and their Gross Domestic Products, GDP, are as follows:

1. China has a population of 1.39 billion people and a GDP of $14.1 trillion.

2. India has a population of 1.31 billion people and GDP of $2.716 trillion.

3. United States of America has a population of 331.88 million and a GDP of $20.4 trillion.

4. Indonesia has a population of 264.94 million and GDP of $267.56 billion.

5. Pakistan has a population of 210.8 million and a GDP of $277.2 billion.

6. Brazil has a population of 210.3 million people and GDP of $464.74 billion.

7. Nigeria has a population of 205.6 million people and GDP of $115.1 billion.

A simple analysis of the above indicates that the population of Nigeria is rising explosionally; yet, Nigeria remains a consumer country without producing nor manufacturing sufficiently, what it consumes. At 3% growth rate per annum, Nigeria's population will be over 500 million by the year 2050, just about 30 years ahead. And the country will beat Brazil, Pakistan and Indonesia  to become the 4th most populous country in the World but may still rely on imported goods & services for survival. This signals that a terrific danger lies ahead of our survivability. This means that unless Nigeria gets strategically industrialised, terrorism and banditry and all forms of crimes will rise to unimaginable magnitudes that will prove difficult to defeat.

Last year, Nigeria imported milk amounting to $1.2 billion which translates to over N360 billion. The country consumes 3.3 million metric tons of fish yearly but produces only 1.1 million mt thereby, importing 2.2 million metric tons of fish yearly worth over $6 billion; that's about N2 trillion. Nigeria still imports rice, sugar, refined crude oil products etc. Nigeria has about 567 varieties of plants, and the highest in the whole world; yet, we're not a nation of pharmaceuticals. South Africa has the highest of "pharmaceutical" plants in the world.

Nigeria has a land area of 910,770 square kilometers. If this land is divided among the population, each citizen will get less than one-quarter of a hectare; that is, below 2,500 square meters . By the year 2050, each citizen will have less than 1,250 sqm of land. This is, again, symptomatic of a greater danger in the years ahead unless Nigerian Leaders and Elites desist from stealing our money and get industrialisation into the country. What this further means is that Nigerians should begin to shun building of gigantic personal residential houses, sprawling bungalows and flats. Government can check these through countrywide  tax revenue drive on relevant land charges.

NASARAWA STATE ECONOMY

The State appears rudderless with no particular economic direction that one can say with conviction, precision or exactitude. Instead of the outgoing Governor al-Makura to get strategically busy to industrialise the State as his counterparts in Lagos, Kebbi and even Borno are focused on industrialisation, the  man is busily focused on creation of more Emirates and Chiefdoms even without those affected communities demanding for such creations. Today, Nasarawa State parades the highest number of titled, staffed Traditional Rulers in Nigeria and Africa, and perhaps, the whole World. And Gwandara, the outgoing Governor's ethnic group, has the highest titled traditional stools in the state, and also the only ethnic group whose traditional rulership cuts across 50% of the Local Government Areas of the State. He has cut-to-size and  weakened the administrative jurisdictions of the Emirates of Lafia, Keffi and Nasarawa and so also those of some age-long Chiefdoms. The wage bill and overheads of the State have jerked-up by these without proportionate  rise in revenues.

Nasarawa state generated N6.8 billion in Internal Revenue in 2017 and was announced by the state government as the highest since creation of the state in 1996. About 85% of this sum came from tax revenue (PAYE) from the salaries of the state civil servants. And the source of this salaries is the FREE money from Abuja, the Federation Account. This means that the state economy is sitting on quick-sand with zero fundamentals. This is dangerous! It means that if, for instance, crude oil production plummets notoriusly or shuts-down completely, or crude oil price crashes miserably, Nasarawa State will collapse. The past Governors including the outgoing Governor have failed the people, have breached the collective trust reposed on them and have demonstrated their clear cluelessness of the fundamentals for a budding economy.

The job of a Governor is not to sit in an airconditioner office like a "Village King", creating rhetoric thoughts and  ditching out fire-brigade orders. The job of a Governor is to sit under the sun, in the rain, in order to effectively utilise his constitutional and situational Authorities to envision, to inspire, and to take calculated risks that are anticipated, estimated, believed, expected, or projected to yield desired deliverables for the good of the society, in the service of the masses, and to the glory of God.

REVOLUTIONALISATION OF THE STATE ECONOMY

The biggest threat to farmers' activities in crop production in Nigeria today is herders' cows. But therein lies the biggest economic opportunity. Cattle Ranch is the ideal solution as being  practised worldwide. Here lies huge, varied revenues to Government, huge wealth to citizens, and huge employment possibilities. Nasarawa State should go into the business of a domesticated commercial cattle ranching. The climatics are favourable. The incessant rifts between crop farmers and cattle herders are not tribal nor religious but basically on economy.

These countries practice cattle ranching: South Africa, Australia, Netherlands, India, USA, Germany, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, China, Argentina etc. Export revenues of 2016 on beef are: Australia $5.6 billion, USA $5.2 billion, Netherlands $2.7 billion. Milk export revenue: Australia $27m, USA $1.4b, Netherlands $1.9b. In 2016, population of Brazil was 202 million and Nigeria 197 million. Brazil had 226 million cows in its inventory that period but Nigeria's figure couldn't be ascertained.

Lagos State statistics has it that 9,000 cows enter Lagos daily for consumption. Lagos population is 20 million people and is 10% of Nigeria's population. This means that 2,222 people consume one cow everyday in Lagos and Nigeria, totalling 90,000 cows daily. This means 2.7 million cows are eaten monthly and 32.4 million cows in one year. If the beef demand rises to about 750 persons per cow per day, the 32.4 million  cows consumed per year will tripple to about 100 million cows. 110 million cows can be ranched for dairy products of milk and cheese. Aside value-chain, these derivative industries will sprout: Meat processing, Leather (hides & skin), Milk, Yoghurt, Cheese, Organic Manure, Animal feeds, Grass Production.

Revenue to Nasarawa State Government is projected to be in hundreds of billions per annum with total employment possibilities in excess of 500,000. The income of crop farmers will be diversified and grow all year round. Insecurity, crimes and Criminalities will go down.

Nasarawa State will top all the other 35 States in Internal Revenue Generation. Real economic development will place the state on the map of an Emerging Economy in the sub-region of West Africa. Nasarawa State; a budding economy of possibilities!
===End of Part 10====