There is nothing wrong in knowing where good money is and going after it. What’s the point of lamenting and wringing your hands over a challenge when you can do something about it? So, I applaud the smart Northern Nigerians in whose hands 83% of Nigeria’s oil blocs are.
They have money-wise heads on their shoulders. They knew how to translate power to money through opportunities. And may I also submit here and now that it is not their fault that they own those oil blocs instead of my PhD-crazy, grammar-blowing kinsmen and my container-on-the-high-seas importer and exporter Igbo friends. After all, my South-South compatriots are doing what they have to do as you read this, turning power to wealth through opportunities.
A smart man’s got to do what a smart man’s got to do. Non? Oui, tres bien. But all that and their implications are a long matter for another day soon. For now, I am appalled as I applaud the Northern wise men. Appalled that those oil blocs have been in their hands for long enough but the region does not have enough to show for it. Appalled that they have made so much money from their lucrative ventures and the North is still like what it is. I know that I do not know everything but I know enough to conclude that with so much milk and honey in the hands of the wise men from the north, there is so much thirst and hunger in that part of town to make me cry. Of course, there is room to further educate me.
I’m even amenable to an excursion through the region with a guide who can show me structures, business empires and other fruits of all those oil blocs in the North, from Abuja to Sokoto. And let nobody tell me about how textile industries in the North died. I am totally not interested. BATA, MICHELIN, DUNLOP and all the textile industries in the South also closed shop. But the wise men from the South are still providing employment and reinvesting. Not a few graduates still get employment in the private sector. Yes, once in a while, we feel like the southern wise men can do better but we can’t deny that they are doing something. Apart from their investments that are yielding profit, they still do charity.
They still give scholarships. I know the wise men from the North also do great charities. But I will love to see Transcorp Hilton in Kano. I’d love to see the city become a choice centre for concerts and conferences. It’s got the ambience, the history. I also know one rich man who can single handed take Trancorp Hilton to the north. I don’t have to mention his name but I know that he has the power and clout to bring the best hotel groups in the world to the North. He has crisss-crossed the world in his prosperous life to invest in a hotel chain that will make all the hotels in Lagos beg him to include them.
Now, we all know what improvement a flourishing hotel will bring to the local economy in which it operates. The hotel must recruit gardeners, laundry men, cooks and guards. The waiters and waitresses will come from the city and neighbouring towns. Those who come from outside the city will rent houses and more landlords must necessarily emerge when tenants increase. That means the bricklayers and all other construction site workers will be employed. Hotels usually have car hire services.
So, more cars (which will increase the number of litres of fuel sold per day) will get into Kano. More drivers, more cars mean more mechanics. More mechanics will mean more mechanic apprentices. Spare part shops must increase. Where will the hotel kitchen get its beef and poultry supply? Won’t the hotel have to build staff quarters for its top management? In fact, I’m already imagining me applying to supply the towels and even stationeries for the conference rooms. Won’t Nigerian Breweries, Coca-cola and Guinness do more business? I could go on and on, and this is just about one or two five-star hotels by one of my rich daddies in the north.
Let’s imagine my second daddy who also owns one of the oil blocs decide to build a specialist hospital with the best gadgets in the world, employs the best specialists in Maiduguri, complete with a helipad. You know the one I’m talking about, yes, the one with the beautiful daughters. Imagine a hospital that will make a particular high-end hospital in Lagos look like a small clinic. This daddy of mine can afford to build two simultaneously. A hospital modelled after the ones Nigerians go to in India and Germany. It doesn’t matter if it is expensive and not for the poor. What matters is what a one-of-a-kind specialist hospital in Maiduguri will do to the reputation of Maiduguri and Nigeria.
Are you thinking of the number of doctors and nurses that will leave Lagos and Ekiti and Ebonyi and other states to work there? Which means those governors who lose staff to the new hospital, let’s call it GOLDEN CREST HOSPITAL, will have room for new doctors. I am already thinking of getting the contract to build the doctors quarters and or do the interior decoration of the nurses’ apartments. Are you seeing the bigger picture; ambulances, medical supplies, shopping malls, more cars, more houses, jobs for drivers, bricklayers, tailors… yes, I have a few uniform designs in my head for smart nurses and even five-star hotel cleaners. Why must Asaba and Enugu be choice location for Nollywood?
What’s wrong with Mercy Johnson, Funke Akindele, Omotola Jalade and Genevieve in Yobe? Then Damaturu Airport will get built and crime will subside as young men get busy. Nollywood, as far as I am concerned, is the most successful sector of our economy. It employs daily and reemploys as it improves by the day. Why can’t one of my rich daddies who have oil blocks build a movie village there? I will build a small guest house for the stars who want exclusive services, complete with a Moroccan spa.
See? I want to be part of a great North. Like most Nigerians. And why are all the choice private universities in the south when my rich daddies in the north can build better ones? ABTI in Yola is eye-popping. Why is it standing alone? If more private universities spring up from the proceeds of oil blocks, won’t we generate more employment as we have always wanted? And university towns always develop faster than their neighbours. There are so many things that we can do with proceeds from oil wealth.
There is so much we can accomplish with sheer focus and determination. I do not agree that Nigeria is a hopeless case or that our unemployment rating can’t improve. I also know that the difference between ETISALAT, GLO, MTN, and AIRTEL on the one hand and the defunct NITEL on the other is because the new telecommunication companies are in private hands and the latter was government business. Therefore, oil wealth reinvested by individual businessmen will profit the nation more than oil wealth being managed by government.
We cannot continue to wallow in economic sin and selfish acquisition and expect national prosperity to fall in our laps. If wealth in the hands of wealthy northerners is reinvested in the north, prosperity will return to that region. If wealth returns there, unemployment will reduce drastically. If able bodied men can find jobs, crime will become unattractive to them. And then peace will return. I know it a little girl’s simple logic but if the wise men from the North consider it, they just might find it useful. And this proposal is free-of-charge, anyway.
This piece was called from Sun