of dreams and visions

“Your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions”

There is this great story I read, a boy was sold in his youth into slavery, he became a “house boy” to a General, was accused wrongly of rape, sent to Kirikiri, and there he was wasting away till one day, he was summoned by the SSS to see the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

The C in C told him, “young Man, I had a dream yesterday, all my Babalawo’s and advisers cannot interpret it, they say you have a gift of dream interpretation” so the King told the young man his dream, and the young man interpreted “Oga, you will have 7 years of Oil boom, and then 7 year of global recession” wow! The King said, “What do we do?” “Well the young man replied “appoint a Minster who will save just a fifth of all the earnings during the boom years, so that when the recession comes, we will not have a depression”. The C-in-C was so impressed he gave the young man the job of the minister, “go and perform” he told the young man. The young man went created an excess crude account and saved, and soon the nation had $65 billion in foreign reserves.

After the end of the seven years the world faced a recession, everyone was broke, only the nation had cash, so they were invited to G8, g20 even G2 so that they could be cajoled to invest, the Nation became top dog, the nation invested and bought up quality assets all over the world, became a force to be reckoned with, and her people prospered. This is a true story.

Let me ask a question what was harder to do? Interpret the dream or implement it?

What is a dream? What is a vision? Forget the consultant definition, a dream is a failed vision, a vision is a dream that came to pass. Walt Disney had a dream to “make people happy”; today we say he had a great vision. The British Empire had a vision that “the sun would never set on their empire”, today, we call it a dream. Google had a dream, “to be the perfect search company”, today we say they had great vision, Enron had a vision to “be the world leading company” (really) today we say it was a dream.

In Nigeria’s short history we have had visions and dreams, “food and Housing for all by the year 2000” was a pipe dream, and Abuja FCT was a good vision.

Ok vision 20-20. . Was it harder to get this dream or implement It.?

Lets understand the 20-20 dream, it is to be among the 20 biggest economies by 2020. To measure how big an economy is, you measure the GDP. GDP means the output of the country ie the amount of crops, cars, pure water, generators, hotels, and beer, maize, bread produced in the country, a larger GDP means a larger economy. Vision 20-20 is brilliant; it’s simple, sexy, and easy to understand and also aspirational. But Nigeria is excellent at getting dreams, we dreamt DFRII, MAMSER, WAI, Food for all by year 2000, NEEDS, SAP, SMEIS, OFN, NAPEP, Good People, Good Nation etc so getting a dream in Nigeria is easy. What about implementation?

First a digression, Why 2020? Why 20? Why target GDP growth? Why not to have the 20 best universities by 2020? Why not to produce the best 20 cash crops by 2020 (everything can grow in Nigeria, we have Deserts, Savannah, Lush forests and swamp that’s why IITA is in Nigeria) why not have to biggest 20 manufactures by 2030? why not the best primary health care by 2020?

Ok visions are built on the strengths, resources and even geography of the people. You cannot be in Saudi Arabia and dream to build the world largest alcoholic brewery, the innate condition of your nations people skill, culture, geography and resources will not allow that. Hence we have the theory of comparative advantage by David Ricardo. In simple term David postulated that you discover what you have ie your strengths and build on that to beat the world,

Ok Kalu what does Nigeria have? What is our competitive advantage? Well population. You see when people say Nigeria is the “Giant of Africa”, they don’t mean we have the largest land mass, nor the richest resources, nor the best roads, nor the best power generation station nor the best Army nor the best Hotels nor the best football team, they mean literally we are plenty, 150 million English speakers, (ok broken English speakers).

But the govt has not invested massively in the very thing that will take us to 20-20 which is the people, our strength. We are investing in persons (Senators and Governors) but not people. Kalu how do you invest in People? Well by educating them, by giving them “light” so their kids sleep and not kill mosquitoes all night, so the man can earn a living and send the kids to school, you give them health so they live above 42 years (WHO figures) you give them housing so they can raise a family, you make the judiciary functional so that 90% of the population is jail are not awaiting trial (yes that a fact) then most importantly you give them the power to elect their leaders then stand back and see what happens.


Lets me put it this way, if you were in Kindergarten and you were told by your parents that you have to graduate in 11 years with a PHD in Particle Physics impossible? Here’s the catch, you will have no new books, you will have the same teachers, and you will stay in the same classroom, impossible?

Well to get your doctorate you need new teachers, new books, new classrooms new everything. That means we need new roads, new power stations, new courts of laws, new laws on labour and intellectual property rights, new laws on land use Act, Social security etc So Vision 2020, requires not just massive investment, but investment to empower people who will work in the factories, build the roads, treat the populace, police the populace, educate the populace, maintain the power plants etc

Let me list below the top 20 GDP, I want some one to tell me which country we will replace in 11 years

1. USA
2. JAPAN
3. CHINA
4. GERMANY
5. FRANCE
6. SPAIN
7. UK
8. ITALY
9. CANADA
10. BRAZIL
11. RUSSIA
12. INDIA
13. SOUTHKOREA
14. MEXICO
15. SWEDEN
16. AUSTRALIA
17. NETHERLANDS
18. TURKEY
19. BELGIUM
20. INDONESIA

Saudi Arabia is 23 (with all their oil ooh), Nigeria is 40

Now Indonesia is the nearest target (assuming they stand still).Our GDP is $338 billion Indonesia is $915 billion, so we have to grow the entire economy by 171 times (e.g. 171 new stock exchanges with the same listings as the present one in Lagos), also consider Indonesia produces 142 billion Kwh of electricity, Nigeria produces 22 billion kwh, so we have to build 545 new PHCN’s! the bulk of Indonesia workers are in Services and Manufacturing the bulk of Nigeria people are in Agriculture ie substience farming, Indonesia has over 600 airporte, we have just over 60. , Indnesia has 6,458 km of rail track, we have 3, 505 (we have no rail link from east to west) Indonesia has 391,000 km of roads we have 193,000 pls stop kalu.

So what the government is saying is that we will jump 20 places by growing our entire economy 171 times and knock off one of the countries on this list abi? Can it be done? the real question is who will do it or implement it? Who will focus on Education, Health, Security, Power Generation, Rule of Law, infrastructure development, Intellectual Property protection etc?

In 11 years we will know if 2020 was a dream or a vision.

It’s our problem we can fix it.


Kalu