The most important reform has not been contemplated yet.
Actually, two:
1. Mental Reform
I don't have hope that Nigerians will be better soon until citizens key into the idea that Nigeria can be better in their lifetime. When they do this, it will manifest in their words and in their actions, and they will have more faith in the country and defend it.
2. Economic and Structural Independence
All these buildings of roads and rail, and constitutional reviews, are utterly useless if we are building a ghetto for foreigners.
Just like in Lagos, where the government pumped billions to build infrastructure that displaces its own original citizens and sells to foreigners and other tribes while its own people live where they can as they were priced out of their fathers' land—in the same way, Nigerian investment in law and infrastructure will only favour those who can pay and not those who own it.
If we build this infrastructure with foreign labour and expertise, we miss an opportunity to grow our people and make them globally competitive, while we export labour and subsequently attract inflation. We have sold our country into global slavery.
The way to empower our people is to challenge them to build. If they make mistakes, they will fix them. Elon Musk lost billions in testing rockets, and the USA NASA did not go back to Russia, which already had a working rocket. They let Musk learn from the failure, and over the years SpaceX perfected it and is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. This would never have happened if the Americans had looked toward Russia or China while SpaceX was blowing up in the air.
For context, when SpaceX started launching the Falcon 1, its first three rocket launches blew up or failed, nearly bankrupting the company by 2008.
NASA did step in significantly—not by taking the job to Russia, but by awarding SpaceX a crucial $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract in late 2008 just as Musk was running out of money
Nigeria will have to learn that failure is a sign that one started and should not be the reason to take the jobs to outsiders. But I do not blame the Nigerian government as much as I blame Nigerians who want instant results and mock their own country's failure and attempted try rather than encourage. They want perfect roads built by world-class engineers in four years and not a slow-speed one built by Nigerians.
Countries that industrialised rapidly (such as South Korea or post-war Asian tigers) relied heavily on a synchronised national ethos where citizens and local industries tolerated early subpar domestic products, patronised them, and forced them to improve over time through local demand. Impatience with local imperfection often starves domestic innovation of the practice runway it needs to mature.
Then you have to also cast blame on Nigerian professionals for not having the boldness to innovate and seek funding outside the government. Average Nigerian contractors depend massively on government projects and funding. Even people who invent stuff often call out the government for not funding their invention to the commercial stage. It is like they expect the government to give free money in billions for them to build factories and yet remain the largest shareholders. If this does not happen, they "japa" and start cursing their country as a nation where things don't work.
It is a collective responsibility.
There are the things I believe are needed to make Nigeria great; anything else is just politics for winning and losing elections.
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