Why I'm not over worried over the rise of dollar against naira

It beats my imagination that Nigerians deliberately destroyed the economy. Why? We have this mentality that only foreign goods are good. We forgot that the only way to make our own products good is to buy them, complain and make suggestions on how to improve the standard of what we produce locally. 

We are lazy to have patronized foreign products over our own products. You see, even investors prefer to import stuff that could have been manufactured here. Why? Because we don't even love our own products not to talk of encouraging foreign investors to establish factories to produce what we need here. I don't see why we import sugar. We can produce here too: encourage mass production, that's all.

I see no reason why we should import poultry products such as chicken and eggs for instance. According to a story I read on Nairaland, the CBN on June 23, 2015 officially stopped the sale of dollars to the importers of 41 items, in its quest to reduce the pressure on the naira as well as preserve the country’s external reserves.The essential food items included on the list are rice, margarine, palm kernel/palm oil/vegetable oil, meat and processed meat products, vegetable and processed vegetable products, poultry products like chicken, eggs, turkey, and tinned fish in sauce. 

Now, why should we still be importing stuff like these? We could have over these years, initiated policies that would encouraged these items to be produced only here in Nigeria and exported to other countries. We were never serious citizens. At this age, Nigeria shouldn't be importing any of these items. Imagine, we also import palm oil and kernel when even in my village, my grand father was into this production back then and there are many palm trees around. We could have looked for how to mechanize these production to be able to produce the amount needed by Nigerians and also sell to other countries. 

Someone told me that we also import banana and I almost collapsed. In Ondo state, farmers are producing banana that with 300 naira, you can buy banana that can carry you for days but when you get to other cities, you hardly see banana not to talk of the cost of buying the few that are available. Even states close to Ondo state. Something is seriously missing. Go to villages and see farm products been produced by local farmers but in small quantity and are very affordable. And these same items are imported daily into the country...are we really mad or we are crazy :P

I wish I have the capital....these farmers simply need someone like you with the capital and network to come and partner with them, produce these products in high quantity and make them available to larger markets and industries that need them for production. You can imagine how much one can make doing palm oil business. 

We still import all sort of fishes. Must we eat that one from Turkey or Morocco or Norway? We have rivers here and we can eat the ones that God gave us. I'm sure fishes gotten from our local rivers can also serve for certain production if we carry out further research to see what we can make from our local fishes. But we don't even encourage research here in Nigeria. See, we import too much and we are greedy. We killed our economy. I have never blamed Buhari for destroying the economy because the truth is, he didn't destroy the economy...the economy was destroyed decades ago. I only blame him if he fails to take bold steps to revive the economy. We need stronger policies. 

For instance, I see no reason why someone would go abroad to study political science, climate change etc...we can go abroad to study courses that are not available in the country. The govt should initiate policies that can encourage those who went abroad to study courses such as medicine and other professional courses to return and practice here. Most of them complete their studies abroad and end up establishing health centres over there while we lack them here. We need to think and be harsh on our selves. Seriously, we don't need too much democracy now. Policies that should encourage political office holders to send their kids to govt owned schools in Nigeria up to first degree are what we need. If you don't like such policies, you back off from government posts. It's only when such people school here that our leaders can take education as a serious business. Look at how much most countries make from foreign students. Are we mad or crazy? I ask again :P

We need to deliberately discourage people from importing cars and encourage investors to only come and build plants here instead of importing these cars. We need policies that will force political holders to use cars manufactured in Nigeria while working for the country. If you don't like it, kindly forget about contesting for position in the country. I don't see why ordinary political aids make use of imported cars. It makes no sense at all. Top holders can use official cars for security sake but not regular aids and gradually, we get to improve the cars made in Nigeria to meet the security needs of top political holders like president, governors, senate presidents etc. But those who work with them should use made in Nigeria cars to encourage people to go into the business and create jobs and reduce pressure on naira. 

Due to the dollar issue, some companies are now establishing plants to produce what they usually import because they can now see that importing is very expensive. That is cool. In my recent journey, I saw that poultry farms are on the increase. Yes, we need more and more. I bought a shoe in Aba for N2, 500 naira for my dad while I was in year 1 back then in UNN and he used that shoe for 3 good years. I know luxury is sweet but we should love Nigeria. You see, there are good products here and they can only get better if we buy them and support them.  At the moment, we have no option but to think local....support those guys in Aba. Buy made in Nigeria.