How Buhari can diversify the economy

Central to the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari is the revival of the Nigerian economy. Times without number the president has happed on this promise. Already, our dependence on oil has now proven how vulnerable the country can be to the vagaries of oil prices and local politics in the oil-producing region. With the […]

Central to the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari is the revival of the Nigerian economy. Times without number the president has happed on this promise. Already, our dependence on oil has now proven how vulnerable the country can be to the vagaries of oil prices and local politics in the oil-producing region. With the current drastic fall in oil prices, security crises in the Niger Delta, the politics of revenue allocation formula, oil theft and bunkering that have collectively drastically reduced the oil revenue, our economy is gradually collapsing. This is how bad things have become, and the president has realized that we cannot and should not continue like this. All these, as the president reasonably concluded, call for the diversification of the economy away from oil. The new focus, the president said while addressing his Ministers-designate, will be in mining and agriculture.
Let me however venture to add transportation to the list, without which there can be no economic development of any sort, anywhere. It is through transportation that goods and services are obtained and moved from one point to the other. Transportation comprises of four basic elements – road, water, rail and air. This therefore means that if Nigeria is to develop her economy she must have to enhance the development of her transportation sector. As of now, two of the transportation elements, rail and water, are simply non-existent in the country, while air transportation is almost confined to passengers only to the exclusion of domestic cargo services; leaving virtually the entire haulage of goods across the country to road transportation. It is therefore critical that all the transportation sectors are fully developed if the country is to have any reasonable hope of diversifying her economy and attaining physical development. Central amongst all transportation sectors, and probably the oldest, the largest, the least expensive and the most cost effective, is water transportation. Once the water is there all you need do is to throw in your boat and you are in business. No maintenance is required other than ensuring that the water is there. For us in Nigeria, in addition to the Atlantic Ocean on our coastline we also have the Niger and the Benue Rivers way into the interior of the country.
The Niger and Benué Rivers are two important rivers that ordinarily should define the material development of the nations through which they flow. This gives Nigeria the natural advantage of using the rivers maximally both for internal water ways and for agriculture. 
 By the International Protocols of the United Nations, before then the League of Nations, and before the Anglo-French and/or Anglo-German Agreements, no country through which the rivers flow may use the rivers, or their valleys or tributaries in such a way, form or manner that can adversely affect the other. But under broad day light, Cameroun has built the Lagdo Dam which depleted the size and volume of the river and water that adversely affected Nigeria. It has so depleted the water level of the Benuéthat we no longer use the river for agriculture, especially dry season irrigation, fisheries and aquatic life; and alsodried up the water level that it is no longer navigable thereby killing our major internal waterway – all these making Nigeria, particularly Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, Benué and Kogi states, lose trillions since the Dam was constructed about 30 years ago.
As children in secondary school, we used to be told by our friends who lived around that area that they see vessels carrying containers ply the river to discharge goods at the harbour in Ibi, Lau, Numan and Yola for the most part of the year; and even proceed to Garua in Cameroun. We used to see serious agricultural activities being carried out by our people throughout the days of the year, not only on the Benué valley but also on its main tributaries of Mayoine, Tsikakiri, Gongola, Taraba, Donga, Katsina Ala and Ibi rivers. Today all these are gone, not because of climate change but mainly as a result of the construction of the Lagdo Dam.
For President Buhari’s economic diversification policy to succeed it must be based amongst others on two critical sectors – Agriculture and Transportation; and these two are dependent on water, especially the former. It is against this backdrop that the issue of returning the Benue River (and the Niger) to its natural size and water level must take a center stage of policy initiatives of the present government. To this end, I think it will do well for President Buhari to initiate some discussion with the Camerounian government with the objective of getting this serious issue resolved amicably. The bottom line is that the Benue River must be made to return to its natural size and water level. It is the source of life to our people in agriculture and internal waterway. In a world where countries build artificial canals to create water source, we must not allow our natural canal be blocked unlawfully.
Given this need, it is suggested here that the government among other things also focus on the following:  Constructing inter-state dual-carriage ways of both roads and railway lines linking all our State Capitals and major towns throughout the country for rapid economic and social growth and quick transformation and modernization of our communities; Dredging the Niger and Benue rivers for inland waterways for navigation and agricultural activities in irrigation and fisheries;
Developing the aviation and marine industries such that Nigeria become a global aviation and maritime hubs.
Barrister Mohammed Betara Aliyu is an Abuja based Attorney 08036743640.