THE economic strength of any nation is a function of two important factors, videlicet; natural resources endowment, human knowledge, and wisdom. The two are indeed blessings of the Almighty on the universe. While the former is produced raw, the latter is acquired and constantly updated from time to time in order to meet the challenges of the ever dynamic environment.To the glory of God, Nigeria is well blessed with all the aforementioned resources and this partly accounts for her respectable position and fame among the comity of nations in the sub-Saharan Africa in particular and the world in general.Prior to the discovery of crude oil in Nigeria in the 50s, substantial chunk of our foreign exchange came from agriculture. And with little or no borrowing, we were able to finance major projects, conveniently including those, even with oil money we could hardly embark upon, today for some obvious reason.Painfully however, the sector that had tremendously sustained the economy of the country has been abandoned while we rely on mono-product economy. Nigeria, as blessed as it is can therefore, currently be described as a nation having all her eggs in a basket.What a colossal risk! The overdependence of Nigerian economy on petroleum is highly unsafe for our progress as a nation and so, government of the day needs to rise up to the challenge of diversifying the economy. After all, if Nigeria has no oil not present in the first instance, our leaders will not be in Abuja attending to only files. Let them as a matter of urgency devise holistic economic policies that will jump-start the country's ailing development. Economic resources are scattered everywhere in the country to the extent that no region or even local government area exists without its own unique product. In other words, where there are no oil resources, there are several solid minerals. Also, in places where the two items mentioned above are as a natural resource, they are compensated with unique soil, water and vegetation resources laden with high economic values. I will suggest Nigerian leaders borrow a leaf from the developed world like Japan and China. The duo are giants in the technologically advanced world, not because they did not have challenges, but because they had a target and committedly worked towards it. Japan particularly started with a policy known as 'product per village.' It was designed to mandate every village in the whole of that country (Japan) to identify and develop a particular product where it has comparative advantage. After production, all they need do is just to conspicuously put 'Made in Japan,' and the government on its part gives every necessary support needed from the point of production to marketing. That is how the Japanese were able to systematically launch themselves into the world market.Considering the number of villages in Japan and the number of products produced, why won't it astronomically develop technologically' China also adopted a similar measure. Although, when it started, initially, almost all its products were truly substandard, to the extent that Nigerians usually mocked them, referring to their products as Igbo made, Chinco etc, but with their doggedness and commitment, it is able to surmount all challenges on its way to success.Today, is there any product or technology that cannot be manufactured by the Chinese' In agriculture, we were all told the story of how Malaysian government came to Nigeria for the seedlings of oil palm, today, the country is not only the leading producer of palm oil in the world, it generates about 90 per cent of her foreign exchange from palm oil. Where are Nigerian oil palm plantations' Have they not suffered neglect' Of what particular impact is the oil palm research institutes when nothing substantial is being earned from there' The attitude of reliance on federal allocation without contribution is uneconomical and should therefore, totally be discouraged. Moreover, it is an act of political indiscipline and economic imprudence for anyone to develop interest in governing a local government, state or nation with no substantive knowledge on how to generate revenue to finance its overall development. Nigerian leaders should eschew corruption in all its forms and also be totally committed to making this nation great indeed. Leadership transcends just unnecessary display of wealth; nor is it only about the immediate gain for self and families. It is all about being altruistic and rendering selfless services to the society, so that, the impacts will outlive generations. To this effect, I want to advocate that governments direct her resources and energy towards identifying the various indigenous technologies and economic resources at least, local government by local government. And given adequate support, it should enforce all local government administration to develop them based on their comparative advantages. Besides, it is also important for government and her agencies to create links and international markets for these products to facilitate economic growth and development. The advantages derivable from these are enormous, besides creating guaranteed job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths, it will strengthen local industries, boost foreign exchange earnings and automatically increase Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP).Mayowa, wrote in from Oje Owode, Oyo State.
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