2 August 2018
1. An Economic plan that would work is a plan that identifies our strength and resources as a people and provide alternative pathway to a fruitful harvest.
2. We have invested billions into Tinapa, Ranch, and the Tourism sector and nothing to show for it, but a successful plan will bundle them together and create a medium to long term plan going forward.
3. Our tertiary institutions are failing, unemployment on the rise, most young people after youth service just return home to be an extra burden to their parents, a meaningful economic plan will capture this demography, identify the problem, possibly build a database and a workable plan on how to engage our youths to productive ventures.
4. An economic plan that does not have the ability to identify the key problems in a given society cannot come up with workable solutions. Sometimes when these politicians talk about economic diversification they are actually clueless as to what they mean if you ask them deep questions.
5. Our state is blessed with a lot of raw materials. The question is, how do we explore opportunities in markets where our surplus is their need?
6. A meaningful economic plan will identify markets, develop the market relationships, put in place structures that will process and package our surplus, work out a plan on how to engage our teaming youths through loans and funding guarantees. You can have so much around you and still be very poor which is our situation as a state today.
7. A good economic thinker looks before he leaps. He Considers the economic impact of a policy to the population before embarking on them.
8. For example, if your people are industrious, then invest in industry development, train them in industry development, and provide industry support services. If they are not naturally industrious, all your investments will be waste.
9. if your people lean more to farming, then invest in small to medium scale farming, if your people are largely civil servants and prefer white collar jobs, then invest in service economy like Carnivals and create projects that requires service white collar engagements. Don’t get into projects because other states are doing it, it will fail. Don’t talk about projects your population cannot sustain its life.
10. Let me give you some tips to good Economic plans. Ogoja Bansara Region are known for rice, sixty years after independence what improvements have they witnessed? Are they still planting, harvesting and selling as their fathers did 100 years ago? A good economic plan will introduce better seedling and processing of high yield products.
11. Ikom Boki are into cocoa, oranges and pineapples, a good Economic plan will think of better processing and packaging plants, but to do that you find the markets to sell first. Apiapum, Nko, Ekori Ugep Ediba and Usumutong has a large rural population dependent on farming, the villages are clustered together, land is scares unlike ikom Boki with abundant land. A good economic plan in the short term will provide free and very affordable fertilizers to the people so they can plant in the same piece of land year in and year out, but on the long term, a good plan will attempt to diversify the production chain within the region from agriculture so fewer people will resort to farming. Understand that in clustered regions, more attachment to land creates more wars and communal conflicts. A good Economic plans for the future using today’s possibilities.
12. Move down to Biase and Odupkani, they have land and forest. Animal husbandry and investments in piggery, poultry and other livestock will be appropriate. Their proximity to calabar the capital city will create new markets for their products and open room for expansion. The presence of rocks and limestones in the region should also encourage youths to form stone excavation small business cooperatives with equipment lease supported by government. With such small support, you will be amazed how many youths you will remove from the job market. Palm and Palm Kennel is abundant in Akampka Biase region, get indigenous youths from the area into cooperatives, provide them with export market training and you remove thousands of youth from the job market.
13. Finally calabar, it is a city of landlords, providing mortgage and housing assistance programs to its indigenes will Change their local economy. Their proximity to the sea can also facilitate agricultural export businesses. Investing in fish, crayfish and other seafoods for both domestic production and export trade to other Nigerian states will not be a bad idea. Micro credit loans will be ideal to open small scale enterprises here.
I will expand on this Economic plans in my future writings. A people can have all what it takes to be great, but still live in poverty. When I look at Cross River, I know we can do better, but over the years we are downs lopping and getting poorer with huge public debts and nothing to show for it. We can do better, Our destiny is in our hands.
Odidi writes from Atlanta, Georgia
