 Focus areas for the next Nigeria CEO. Nigeria is gearing to elect her next president in February 2023. That person will have a very overwhelming task facing a dilapidated entity called Nigeria. The next Nigeria CEO and his administration will encounter monumental economic security and political challenges. They will be greeted by a distraught populace, followed by rising poverty, inflation, unemployment, and unprecedented levels of insecurity. The high level of poverty and unemployment rates in Nigeria are taking time bombs. To avoid the kind of violent protests that forced the president of Sri Lanka to step down, as well as those that rocked Sierra Leone recently, the new Nigeria CEO will need to take bold and decisive measures on a well thought out strategic plan. Nigeria's target is at 33.3% unemployment rate with about 42.5% of that number being the young populace. It's also 22.3% under-employment rate coupled with a 20% inflation rate. Now that's really alarming. Leda is caused by mainly increases in food prices, insecurity has forced many farmers to abandon their farms and disrupted food supplies to urban centers. The cost of living in Nigeria is so high, incredibly high, that Nigerians devote over half of their income to food alone. Now if you think about it, that's really alarming for a supposedly giant of Africa. About four in 10 Nigerians live below the national poverty line. Only 70% hold jobs that pay enough to get out of poverty. Amid these economic challenges, Nigerians feel a deep sense of deprivation when they see a few elite with privileged access to the national wealth live ostentatiously. Here's what I've come to agree should be the first focus for Nigeria's next CEO. The plan should contain measurable targets for creating jobs, poverty reduction and decreasing the costs of living, improving security and making a space for a more collaborative approach. They should involve the private sector and other players. In creating jobs, massive job creation should be done through labor-intensive shovel-ready projects in construction, agriculture, renewable energy, environmental sanitation and security. The aspiring CEOs of Nigeria should now begin to identify these core projects and include them in their vision boards. There should be a total alienation of self-serving projects that don't create jobs or strengthen the economy's productive capacities. Former U.S. President Barack Obama showed us how massive fiscal stimulus programs that include job-creating projects can be effective in reducing unemployment and revitalizing a depressed economy. Nigeria's unsustainable debt profile means the next Nigeria CEO won't have much space for an expansionary physical policy. Now, about 65% of Nigeria's government revenue and over 90% of foreign exchange earnings come from the oil sector. Uncertainties in the global oil market and sluggish revenue growth, as well as the negative impacts of, I mean, the recent leak of COVID-19 on the economy, imply that the country will face challenges generating enough revenue to service debt and finance budget deficits. But Nigeria can significantly reduce government's profligacy and rein in corruption. Physical challenges can also be addressed by imposing taxes on major corporations, especially those in the lucrative sectors like oil and gas, telecommunications, and banking. And then on reducing poverty, it's important to cut the costs of living. Now, the new administration of the Nigeria's next CEO will have to provide immediate succor to millions living in misery, destitution, and hunger. The Muhammad Buhari administration experimented these with conditional cash transfers, you know, but school mails and other social interventional programs have only reached just 10 million people. And when you think about that, that's just 5% of the entire population. Nigeria is one of the very few resource rich countries with no means tested and institutionalized safety net programs. The new Nigeria CEO, as a matter of urgency, should borrow and leave from India, where the government introduced what we call the Russian cards, you know, and these enabled poor Indians to access basic food items at subsidized prices. Food affordability increases productivity, it fosters good health, it spores demand for agricultural products, and boosts economic growth, which is what we're just, you know, clamoring for. It also prevents violent protests and crime. So the new Nigeria CEO should eliminate Nigeria's very expensive and corruption within few subsidies to create a better environment for job creating projects. On the reduction of insecurity, Nigeria's economic problems can't be addressed in an environment of insecurity. There are many causes for this insecurity, but inadequate resources is the biggest. Stories have been told about how criminals overwhelm military and police posts because of inadequate manpower and equipment here and there. The number of security personnel should be increased massively through recruiting new officers and withdrawing others from the non-essential services. And then finally on collaborative approach, the government cannot do it all. The next Nigeria CEO should create a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive. It's important that, you know, this person does this. Domestic and foreign investors need incentives to invest in the economy. They need a stable microeconomic environment with low inflation and a stable exchange rate and a robust economic growth. To this end, the next Nigeria CEO should be very careful about the choice of his economic management team. Very important. The choice of advisors shouldn't be dictated by ethnic, political, or other extraneous criteria. The new Nigeria CEO should provide a credible platform for Nigeria to have frank down-to-earth conversations about how to resolve these issues as well as the future political structure of the country. The next Nigeria CEO must rejig the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission to make them more effective in fighting corruption. Nigerians want to see more corrupt individuals prosecuted and jailed. They want to move beyond just man-naming and shaming that happens, you know, on Twitter. To signal urgency here, the next Nigeria CEO should announce his cabinet and economic team before their inauguration. This would enable them to hit the ground running. Ministerial portfolios should be assigned before many sets are screened by the Senate. This will enable their eligibility to be assessed during their confirmation hearings. I mean, if you think about it, it's going to be quite a daunting task being the next Nigeria CEO. Above all, I personally think that this incoming CEO must lead with empathy. Now I'm just going to take a moment to ask my fellow advocates here what their thoughts are. I'm just going to start from Tulu. Generally, what we do is focus too much on the CEO, you know, on the head of the organization, but in many cases a lot of times to shock you how much influence the special advisor or the executive assistant has on this person. So because the CEO doesn't have all the answers, you know, you've seen that mean where someone says, oh, why don't you want to work with us? And say, can you do the work alone? Clearly, the CEO cannot do the work alone is why you're hiring people. So many times the real test is can the CEO identify and hire the right hands to do the work? It will shock you how much power the president has, but how much power he'll actually have if he has the right person. So I think the real test for the next CEO will be someone that's able to identify good talent and has the political will to hire them because Nigeria has talent. Nigeria has some of the best minds. The way you want to mention is in education, is in academics, in medicine, is in engineering, is in technology. Nigeria has some of the best minds. Look at the last, you know, minister for our culture that we had during the Lord Jonathan. He's gone on to do, you know, fantastic things. Look at because of Conjura O'Aila. Look at where she is now. So we have some of the best minds in the world, but do we have the right person that can identify these people and the political will to go beyond, like you said, beyond politics and beyond tribe and ethnicity and actually hire the right minds? Even some of us who sometimes we are the problems because we do this, the other thing called that way you have to hire people from everywhere. You know, for me, I'm just interested in hiring the right person. Federal character. Federal character. What's that? What do you do that thing for? What does it mean? A lot of trust. You know, because if you have the right person during the job, I don't care what he's from, because if you hire someone that is not from my ethnic, you know, part of Nigeria, what is making decisions that is affecting me positively, economically, why would I have a problem with that? Then hire my uncle who is in a terrible job. You know, so we have to start looking beyond these things is what I think, you know, the CEO needs to be looking at. Just reading through and listening to what she said, I'll just say that all the next Nigerian CEOs in contention left to what's up group. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's what he's doing. That's what he's doing. That's what he's doing. Is it for a man? Right. This is like a public administration school again, right here. Now it's the fundamentals here. It's like an avalanche, a chain reaction. They are interconnected. Whoever wants to be the next CEO of Nigeria needs to understand the fundamentals. Need to know, there is this saying that try to know everything about something and need to about something about everything. You cannot claim to be a president or a governor or a senator and if they ask you a question about economy, education, you might write, you don't know. This is interrelated.