The Diligent maketh Rich

Let us as Nigerians stop congratulating ourselves for awarding new blocs for production and increasing crude oil export. When we export crude oil we ship out unrealized jobs and future country wealth and perpetuate our poverty even as we become addicted to consuming processed petroleum products wastefully and buy more and more refined products from rich nations that continue to get richer.

Our goal instead should be to deemphasise if not stop export of crude and plan how to instead produce/export refined products i.e. have a thriving petrochemical industry… It is diligent disciplined application of technology and hard work that differentiates the refiners of crude oil from opportunist merchants who sell crude … the lazy remain poor (plain and simple) and the rich who export finished products love it to remain so. Indeed in these poor nations there are the few mega rich merchants who live on streets with dead street lights,epileptic electricity and no water supply.

“History shows that no country has ever become rich by exporting foodstuffs and raw materials without also having an industrial sector and in modern terms, an advanced service sector. The more a country specialises in the production of raw materials, the poorer it becomes. But this is a lesson Africa has still not learned. In the 19th century, the saying in the USA was: “Don’t do as the English tell you to do, do as the English did.” Our advice to Africa and other developing countries is: “Don’t do as the Americans and the British tell you to do, do as the Americans and the British did.” For Africa, this is the only way out of poverty and into prosperity. And the time to take that route is now!” reports Osei Boateng

… we must think deeply and out of the box to have a model that works for growth and wealth building for Nigeria.

Proverbs 10:4 He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich