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FSS 2020: Eagle Eyed or Hare brained
Related to country: Nigeria

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FSS 2020: Hare Brained or Eagle Eyed
It is no news or extraordinary analysis that there is an urgent task or clarion call by top Nigerian financial players to rank Nigeria among the top 20 Economies in the world. The vision tagged as FSS 2020 is an idea with full blown ideals and values which ensure open market enterprise, strengthening financial sector , driving economic solutions and ultimately to make Nigeria the center of African business. The FSS 2020 which is based on a report of a global research firm, GOLDMAN SACHS that Nigeria has the right growth indices that can make to be in the league of top 20 economies in the world by 2020.This doesn’t sound fantastic to a right thinking Nigerian who is aware of the immense human skills, abundant natural resources, friendly weather condition, lush vegetation and so on. That Nigeria is blessed with an adroit populace with inner passion, acumen and intelligence is no debatable but one still wonders why we still take an awful seat among the most unemployed and developing nations. It is evident that the vision 2020 has become a mantra on the lips of every Nigeria sector and the consciousness is growing seriously among its citizens.

I present no dissenting view on the need to take Nigeria to the centerpiece of global economics and make an international hub for African business but I believe a few potential drawbacks that tend to make this vision a paper work exercise. It is notable that Nigerian key financial and government leaders during their hey days have brought so many programmes, visions , policies and so on under various nomenclatures which have heralded with optimism, hope and colorful presentations, exquisite documentation, infallible statistics only to fizzle out due inchoate planning and poor understanding of the peculiar Nigerian economy.
I have been overjoyous like all Nigerians on the giant leap in the banking sector and revitalization of other financial sectors which has made our banks to stop being finance storage centers but interactive enterprise that are empowered with a strong capital base to develop the economy maximally. The billions being reaped from public offers and right issues postulates two evasive theories either that Nigerians are wealthy and have enough to save or have seen the resurgent stock market as a short and long term investment hotbed. One does not need a crystal ball to understand that the banking sector remains the strong pivot for actualizing the laudable idea of FSS 2020 and that Nigerian banks a charting a cause to take the lead.
A critical assessment of the healthy Nigerian banking sector also needs to take onto consideration the factors that are needed for the FSS 2020 actualization. The key question about the biggest economies of today is definitely not in the monetary value of banks or macro financial transactions but how the financial enterprises create micro solutions that directly impacts on economic calculations of the average Nigerians. One is astounded at the privatization and open market initiative of last regime which has created a new clique of noveau riche, increased pump prices, subversive call tariffs consequently inflation of consumer goods even when a global economy power house Russia operates a gas monopoly. The brass tacks is that will this timely incursion in to global economics limelight improve the well being of the people and affect the price of fish? How will the manufacturing sector solve the sudden closures due to increase in cost of production and uneven consumer demands? How do we solve the energy bug bear that our locally explored crude oil to be refined at overseas refineries and imported back to us? How will the Nigerian power sector undergo a serial surgical operation? How do we make investment worthy and provide an enabling environment that will be appealing to global brands? How do we develop a home grown technology solutions like the Chinese, India and so on rather going on ceaseless trips to China where we give our national heritage and people cheaply?
Have you ever wondered a top 20 global economy with inexistent iron and steel corporation, automobile industry, poor agricultural development, health sector, educational institutions, aviation, housing, maritime and infrastructure decay, poor research funding, absent silicon valleys, rise in unemployment figures, and lowly rated ivory towers? Are talking an economy gradually giving way to cheap Chinese, Indian and Lebanese technology that pays the citizens peanuts and a dying real sector, an ICT industry blighted with high training fess and host of computer assembly plants not manufacturing plants? I rarely believe we are not making inundating Nigerians with another rhetoric activity whose various visions and strategy usually fail based on abstract analysis and statistics due to negligible and quixotic effect on the micro level of economics. I am so sure Nigerians are fed up of being used as guinea pigs by various governments and really wants a hybrid solution to the Nigeria’s multidimensional problems.
FSS 2020 will be a veritable tool if technology, core industrial human and energy development are considered. This will make the banks to be the real drivers of the new economy as the development of these sectors will make direct impact on the populace. I pray we achieve the 2020 vision which is becoming an instrument of political patronage, conference themes and media ruse rather than a potent economic surgical solution. I hope the architects of this vision take these thoughts of high importance so as not to create a solution analogous with of curing madness with hemlock and that this does not become a laughable idea within the walls of beer parlours. I believe and see a great Nigeria with a developed economy in a rightful top 20 global economy but also most importantly an empowered nation with global prominence and home grown solutions.

Oluseun Onigbinde B.Eng is a prolific speaker and consultant on ICT, power and environmental issues. For comments and enquiries contact mobile: +2348024033857 & oluseunonigbinde@yahoo.com

April 12, 2008 | 1:47 PM Comments  0 comments

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