It is one of the pithy and eternal sayings of our elders. From age to age, it remains a gem: do not worry about the ringworm when you are infested with leprosy, the saying admonishes rather unremittingly.
In other words, we are being charged to focus on the most important things and desist from going after inconsequential matters. Or put differently, we are also reminded by our elders about the un-wisdom of going in pursuit of the rat when our abode is being licked by a conflagration.
Enough said. All we are saying here is that there is a rising hoopla recently about buying made-in-Nigeria products as the key to fighting the wretched exchange rate of Nigeria’s naira against its foreign counterparts. Today, all sorts of groups and bodies talk glibly and make shallow noises about buying Nigeria, dressing Nigeria and even eating Nigeria; as if it were some sumptuous chow.
The din of the so-called ‘campaign’ is often raised to a ridiculously irritating decibel by people who either do not understand what they are talking about or are up to some mischief or both!
However, as we have seen in the past, the ‘campaigners’ soon exhaust themselves and slink back into their shells. Of course, they achieve little, because nobody listens to their oft meaningless shaman-like chants. They achieve nothing and they gain nothing (unless of course they deployed public funds in which case they would have wasted our resources).
Let’s put it into perspective: Hardball has been roused by the recent decision by two public bodies to combine to campaign for made-in-Nigeria goods, as the report stated.
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) reportedly teamed up in what promises to be a formidable tag-team to exterminate a canker that has left Nigeria’s economy prostrate for too long. As their names suggest, SON regulates products in Nigeria, while MAN is an influence group of the country’s manufacturers. It is indeed a powerful duo.
Dr. Paul Angya, the boss of SON, said Nigeria had long been operating what he termed “a cargo economy.” This means an import-dependent system whereby the country has been spending billions in foreign exchange just to import goods from other countries.
Angya buttressed his point, noting that the high rate of consumption of foreign products by end-users and consumers has become so chronic that anything tagged “made-in-Nigeria” is already dead on arrival at the local market.
A great initiative alright, but Hardball has a few questions: (1) how many per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange is spent on petroleum products?
(2) for how long has Nigeria been doling out such huge foreign exchange nearly everyday to buy these products providence bequeathed to us in abundance?
(3) what are the immediate and long term plans to stop the importation of these products; we are talking about petrol, kerosene, diesel, aviation fuel, HDPE, LDPE, HPFO and over a dozen other industrial raw materials derivable from crude oil?
The point of this essay: If we stop the importation of petroleum products, we would save about 70 per cent in foreign exchange. Let’s deal with the leprosy!
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