Tunde Ibitoye 🧡

A whale, even a shark can not live in a pond. Why is President Tinubu fixated on his plan to make the Nigerian economy a one trillion dollar economy? Long before even Jonathan became President, I had wondered why the national budgets of South Africa, Egypt and a few other countries in Africa were bigger than ours. I did not know that Tinubu, as a private citizen, was of that thought too until he became president and made it known that we should have a far larger economy. Yesterday, I checked to know what position Nigeria occupies when we talk of the size of the economy of countries and I saw that Nigeria’s economy is the 48th largest in the world but we are 6th in population size. But I discovered too that only 22 cross the one trillion dollar economy. They are USA ($32.6tr), China ($21.5tr), Germany ($5.47tr), Japan ($4.34tr), United Kingdom ($4.27tr), India ($4.06), France, Russia, Italy, Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Spain, Turkey, Indonesia, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland ($1.14tr), Poland ($1.133tr) and Taiwan ($1.02tr). Then who are the richest individuals in the world? Forbes list of world’s top ten richest men shows that they are all Americans. It is not a coincidence, it is because a whale can not live in a pond. Among the top 50, you have 6 Chinese, a Mexican, 2 Indians, 2 Italians, 2 Japanese, a French man and the rest are Americans. None of the 50 richest men are citizens or residents of any country outside the trillion dollar economies. Not one person. It is because a whale can not live in a pond. Now, let us check Africa. South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the largest economies and if you think that the global ranking was a coincidence, you will understand that it is not in the next paragraph. Among the top 10 richest men in Africa, 3 are from Nigeria (Dangote, Abdusamad and Adenuga); 4 are from South Africa (Rupert, Opponheimer, Mosepe and Le Roux); the other 3 are from Egypt (Nasef Sawiris, Naguib Sawiris and Mansour). You can see that it is not a coincidence, it is because a whale or even a shark can not live in a pond. Nigeria belongs to the class of a trillion dollar economy but without a leader who is bold, courageous, determined, knowledgeable and capable, we will only continue to glory down the ladder of prosperous countries of the world. How does this bring food to your table? Well, a prosperous nation will eventually produce a better standard of living because more money will go into investments in manufacturing, construction, agriculture etc. With Tinubu, Nigeria shall continue to climb the ladder.