One major difference between life in Nigeria and life in developed economies is something we don’t talk about enough: ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE CREDIT. In Canada, car loans can be around 6–7% per annum. Mortgages can be around 4–6%. In the UK, new mortgages are around 4–5%. Across the Eurozone, new housing loans are around 3–4%. In the United States, even with today’s relatively high rates, a 30-year mortgage is around 7%. Now come to Nigeria. Our Central Bank policy rate is 23%, while commercial lending rates can run above 30% and, depending on the lender and borrower, considerably higher. Then there are short-term digital lenders and informal loan sharks whose effective borrowing costs can be brutal. Think about what this does to a society. In developed economies, a hardworking person does not necessarily need the entire cash to buy a car, own a home, acquire equipment or build a business. The financial system allows you to bring tomorrow’s income into today’s productivity. You buy the house and repay over 15, 20 or 30 years. You buy the car and repay over several years. A business buys equipment today and pays for it from the income that equipment generates tomorrow. That is one of the hidden infrastructures of prosperity: AFFORDABLE, LONG-TERM CREDIT. In Nigeria, we have almost criminalised not having cash. If you don’t have ₦50 million today, you may simply not be able to buy the ₦50 million asset, even if you have a stable income capable of paying for it over several years. And when credit is available, the cost can be so high that the loan itself becomes the problem. This affects everything. Home ownership. Transportation. Manufacturing. Agriculture. Small businesses. Education. Technology. Job creation. We cannot build a productive middle class entirely on CASH AND CARRY. A modern economy must allow responsible people to use their FUTURE INCOME to build their PRESENT PRODUCTIVITY. Nigeria doesn’t only need more jobs. We need a financial system that makes the income from those jobs actually capable of building wealth. Affordable credit is not a luxury. It is economic infrastructure.

Last week, I visited the student hostel at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Brock University is a public university. This should be the minimum standard for university hostels in Nigeria.

Canada and Australia have issued travel advisories warning their citizens travelling to Nigeria to take serious precautions regarding food and drinks, including risks associated with unsafe food and water, adulterated alcohol, and methanol poisoning. The growing concerns around the safety and quality of consumable products in Nigeria should be taken very seriously. The level of fake and substandard products in the country is at an all-time high, and NAFDAC is contributing significantly to this menace.