By Rotimi Asalu.
The late Air Vice-Marshall Mukhtar Muhammed resigned on principle from the Air Force and Babangida administration in the late 1980’s.
However he had a plan for his retirement and went into business.
After studying what was being accomplished in Kenya with the daily air freighting of vegetables, fruits and flowers to the EU in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually (reaching approximately $1.2bn in 2021).
He recognized that Plateau State had similar climatic conditions and decided to replicate what Kenyans were doing right here in Nigeria. He purchased land, hired some Dutch expatriates and invested in plant and equipment.
The farm eventually grew to the point where he had two KLM cargo aircraft per week flying directly into Jos to deliver fresh flowers, fruit and vegetables to EU markets.
Things were going so well that, with the encouragement of his Dutch customers and employees, he decided to invest in developing one of the large man made lakes on his farm into a winter resort for European tourists.
So what happened to this thriving business and why haven’t we heard anything more about it? Well the various Nigerian government agencies found out about it and came for their own pound of flesh.
Fees, paperwork, bribes and inefficiency became the order of the day and being a business that dealt in perishable goods they basically killed the business and it was eventually forced to close down. No more jobs for the locals on the farm or planned resort along with the loss in tax revenue to the Plateau State government.
This sad story should be a lesson to any Federal, State or Local government in how their shortsighted policies and corruption kill businesses in Nigeria. AVM Mukhtar Muhammed proved that we Nigerians can do things for ourselves and generate large amounts of foreign exchange from multiple neglected sectors under the right circumstances.
Watching our politicians junketing around the world looking for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) over the years has become a pathetic sight. It’s pointless asking foreigners to invest in a system that sees them as a meal ticket to line the pockets of officials.
A system that deliberately puts bureaucratic obstacles in the way. But also a system that refuses to seriously invest in something as simple as a road infrastructure that will move goods around the country and to our ports for export.
Non-oil exports are the only solution to the foreign exchange shortage and insecurity due to unemployment, so every obstacle should be removed to facilitate them.
CBN should eliminate the foreign export proceeds requirement (after all why should anyone remit their fx proceeds to an institution that had absolutely nothing to do with funding the business).
The multiple agencies and paperwork at the ports should be streamlined or completely eliminated. The myopic infatuation with oil has always been our problem and Nigeria is a perfect example of “The Oil Curse”. AVM Muhammed died in 2017 at the relatively young age of 73 and now we can only guess at how he felt seeing his dream die all those years ago.
