Within the past seven years, Nigerian sports lovers’ addiction to various football clubs reduced slightly due to sports betting. After betting on particular clubs’ victory, gamblers support the club they bet on instead of clubs they liked. They now think more about getting rewards from betting on clubs than instead of shouting up and down in support. Many Nigerians make huge expenses by patronizing and bragging about using various brands of food, wears, furniture and luxury without getting anything in return. It may be better to get steady dividends on your expenses by owning shares in the local brands you patronize.
Humans seek to secure their lives by getting wealth. Yet, after getting wealth, they spend it as payment for their daily needs. But if they own part of the industries that create what they consume, they won’t always have to lose their wealth. Instead, by spending on what their industries produce, the wealth they expend comes back to them. Prosperous societies are not only known for producing what they exchange, but also for consuming what they produce.
Arkad, the richest man in Babylon, insists that “a man’s wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse – or spends even prudently. It is in the income he buildeth, the golden stream that continually floweth into his purse.”[1] This enriching golden stream flows both from the man’s investments[2] and his owned dwelling[3] – daily expenses. For “no man’s family can fully enjoy life unless they do have a plot of ground… where the wife may raise not only blossoms but good rich herbs to feed her family.”[4]
The organic and technical items for which Nigerians spend most of their income include drinks, drugs, cosmetics, food, fuel, generators, vehicles, computers, phones, internet, building materials, wears and others. And there are about 200million Nigerians who spend their earnings on the producers of these items. Unfortunately, almost all the producers of these items are foreigners within or outside Nigeria. Nigerian entrepreneurs import and distribute these items with some profit, while the real wealth goes to the foreign producers. So, Nigerians’ wealth continually flows into foreign producers’ purses, while majority of Nigerians remain poor and unemployed.
Some reasons for the lack of local producers to gain from the wealth in Nigerians’ daily expenses include:
Social disorganization: progressive societies are formed from the agreement of the people to collaborate in utilizing their resources for producing what they need. However, Nigeria was formed by a forceful amalgamation of unconsented ethnic groups and communities under a militarized federal government. Hence, instead of collaborating to produce what they buy, consume and sell, the federal government seizes and auctions the resources for production. And without access to their resources for research and production, intelligent and hard-working Nigerians are unable to produce much.
Foreign competition: the foreign companies benefitting from the wealth in Nigerians’ expenses have advanced more than Nigerian would-be producers. Yet, they are still threatened by the thought of an emergence of local producers to displace them. Hence, there seem to be a series of de-marketing for Nigerian invention and production efforts.
Non-support for local research and production: the disordering of the ethnic communities removed the ethnic communities’ ability to fund researches on their mineral resources towards production.[5][6][7] The government is more interested in getting and sharing funds from mineral resources than funding research and production.[8] In the absence of support for local research and production, many potential producers are discouraged, while others join importation. Then, Nigerians of different ethnic groups abandon the unsupported industrial efforts of Nigeria’s potential producers. Thus, the more Nigerians spend, the more foreign producers get rich.
Possible solutions to these continuous leakage so that Nigerians will earn the expenses of Nigerians’ wealth include:
- The ethnic communities have to renegotiate their union in Nigeria to determine their resources and potential productivity.
- They have to retrieve ownership and control of their resources from the federal government.
- They have to train their people to use their resources for producing what they need.
- Then, Nigerians can get shares in the different industries of the newly enabled Nigerian producers in order to earn dividends from its sales.
- The shareholders will patronize and encourage others to patronize the companies where they own shares in order to increase their dividends.
If Nigerians do not begin to majorly patronize products of which they are shareholders, their wealth will continue to leak into foreign pockets. But like sports-betting, when they hope to earn dividends from spending on their products, they patronize it more and encourage others. That, upon which you consistently spend your time and wealth will continue to grow, whether it is yours or others’. It better be yours.
[1] George S Clason, The richest man in Babylon (Benin City: God’s grace publication). p.36
[2] Ibid. 43
[3] Ibid. 40
[4] Ibid. 40
[5] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 2
[6] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 2, paragraph 1
[7] Nigerian minerals and mining act 2007 act no. 20, chapter 1, Part 1, Section 1, paragraph 3
[8] Chukwunwike Enekwechi, Industry and Academia