Book Review - The Journey to Industrialization by Victor Afamefuna Ozodinobi Col (rtd) Former Military Administrator, Borno State.

The Journey to Industrialization has been structured into five interesting headings. Each of these headings is very important for the government at all levels, industrial policymakers, and tertiary institutions. The book deals with the history of many industrial nations of the world and other emerging markets such as Brazil and Singapore. Any nation whose leaders fail to learn from the past has no journey to make into industrialization. Nigeria has a lot to learn about industrialization from Singapore and Malaysia whose living standard or economies were below that of Nigeria in the early 1960’s.

The question Nigerians should ask is what went wrong? Nigerian founding fathers laid a good foundation for industrial and agricultural developments in the 60’s. In 1960’s Nigeria was on its way to industrial development which was pushed vigorously by the then three (3) regions – Northern, Eastern and Western regions. Nigeria was prominent in the world in many agricultural products vis-a-vis palm oil, cocoa, groundnut, rubber, and cotton which were flourishing, including the cottage industries established in the three regions (Northern, Eastern and Western), and many skilled and/unskilled labour were gainfully employed. Crime rate was at its lowest in Nigeria in the 60’s. Could the flourishing industries in Nigeria be the reason for the low crime rate?

Agriculture was the main stream of our economy. Lack of its sustenance due to the discovery of oil killed Nigerian rise to sustainable economic growth. Nigeria must therefore go back to the drawing board if the country is to stop being a trading/consuming nation and to start being a producing/exporting nation.

Many, if not all the industrialized nations and the emerging markets started their industrial journey through agricultural revolution, when machines were needed to cope with the agricultural growth. This brought about increase in finished products/goods and mass employment. Lip-service given to growth in outputs and GDP in Nigeria has not translated into employment growth in any way whatsoever. Now let us assume that Nigeria has agricultural/industrial growth, it would still fail if there is no manpower to sustain it. Therefore, Nigeria must have trained manpower to contribute to the production of goods and services. Nigeria must adequately fund training institutions – technical schools/colleges and research programmes/institutions.

I am in agreement with this book that the Nigerian government should emulate Singapore and establish an Economic Development Board (EDB) which will invest in manpower development, skills, and technologies. Nigerian leaders should establish an overseas training programme for the country’s workforce in industrialized countries. Subsequently, this may lead to developing technology and design training institutions in Nigeria. Having considered these, our power sector must be a priority and a necessity for industrial development. Although not considered in this book, the country should take adequate measures to forestall insecurity and threats to investors.  Frequent policy changes are worrisome to investors, resulting to loss of investors to other neighbouring countries. No government is an island in itself; therefore Nigerian government should cooperate with chambers of commerce of various zones of the country and chambers of commerce overseas.

Lastly both evolutions (agricultural/industrial) must target small and medium enterprises. The success of this evolution would project Nigeria and may enable them to have comparative advantage over many countries especially in West African zone. As stated earlier, this book is highly recommended for everyone especially, Policy makers, schools/colleges and tertiary institutions. Get a copy! call +234 803 309 6760

Victor Afamefuna Ozodinobi Col (rtd)

Former Military Administrator, Borno State.