National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
By Dayo Emmanuel
Veteran architect and community leader, Arc. Abiodun Akinrimisi, has called on the Federal Government to prioritise local production, revive national infrastructure and promote patriotic values among Nigerians, warning that the nation cannot
achieve meaningful development without deliberately patronising its own resources and talents.
Akinrimisi told journalists in Lagos that the country’s longstanding challenges stem not only from poor governance in years past but also from citizens’ lack of patriotism and failure to support Nigeria-made products“We all can’t be critical of the government all the time,” he said, quoting German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who said: “Correction does much, encouragement does much more.”
The septuagenarian continued: “Many Nigerians don’t like the country. We are haters of ourselves. How many Nigerians are truly Nigerian?”
He recalled the vibrancy of major transport corridors such as the Lagos–Ibadan and Lagos–Badagry expressways in earlier years, lamenting the neglect the roads suffered over time before the current developments.
According to him, the roads were once lifelines for commerce and tourism but deteriorated because successive governments failed to maximise their value.
“When we were much younger, this Lagos–Ibadan Road was the lifeline of Nigeria. We would just pick the car keys and run to the Ibadan tollgate to buy things and be back in no time. Today, the axis is messed up with substandard communities of informal settlements,” he said. “In the US, tourism is built into everything. But here, you drive on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and what do you see? Slums. This is not good branding.”
Akinrimisi argued that while cities have slums, progressive societies manage and upgrade them rather than celebrate decay. He said Nigerians must learn to project a positive national image and stop defending disorder as culture.
The architect also expressed confidence in the current national security leadership, saying the new Minister of Defence and the Service Chiefs appear aligned and strategic. According to him, the synergy among them could yield results ‘in no time’.
Akinrimisi’s most detailed recommendations focused on agriculture and industrialisation. He urged the government to establish agricultural blocks of 50,000 hectares each along major highways such as Lagos–Ibadan, Lagos–Sokoto and Abuja–Kaduna.
He said these blocks should be opened to public bidding for specialised agricultural production, fully equipped with modern farming tools and supported with complete community infrastructure “You see all the equipment they went to bring — the planters, mowers, harvesters — they should be distributed to farmers,” he insisted. “If this agricultural model is implemented, in three years we can move the economy beyond the $1 trillion benchmark.”
The architect noted that a 50,000-hectare agricultural corridor could employ over a million Nigerians, stimulate processing factories along the routes and eliminate peasant farming by migrating farmers into mechanised hubs.
He said each agricultural block should operate like an integrated township with schools, hospitals, banks, housing estates, markets, police stations and well-planned residential districts.
According to him, backward integration would become inevitable when agricultural production scales up, forcing Nigeria to manufacture farming equipment locally.
Akinrimisi criticised Nigeria’s reliance on imported machinery and consumer goods, arguing that the country wastes scarce foreign exchange on products that can be produced domestically with basic technology.
Worried about how Nigerians waste foreign exchange, the architect said, “Some technology is not a big deal. If you knock wooden boxes together, wire them adequately and fix a compressor, it becomes a refrigerator and starts cooling.”
He wondered why Nigerians still import tricycles, refrigerators, gas cookers and tyres when local artisans and panel beaters can gradually develop the capacity to assemble and produce them.
“The tricycles people use in Nigeria are still imported from India. What stops our panel beaters from making them? Knock them together, put them on CNG. It may not be fine initially, but it will improve,” he argued, adding that every kitchen in Nigeria has Made-in-China wares which Nigeria can emulate.
Akinrimisi also criticised Nigerians who boast about travelling abroad to buy everyday items such as toothpicks, saying such behaviour reflects a deeper national inferiority complex.
“The plastic spoon and the diamond spoon perform the same function, but the black man likes status symbols,” he said. “We should stop being unpatriotic, because a poor country has no point to prove with status symbols.”
On the Lagos–Calabar coastal highway, he advised the government to weigh developmental priorities more carefully and maximise infrastructure that links agriculture and tourism for optimal benefits.
Akinrimisi said Nigeria should consolidate small rural communities into planned urban centres with modern facilities and institutions such as polytechnics, colleges of education and universities to foster human and economic development.
Reflecting on his life, Akinrimisi said he is a product of opportunity, having enjoyed scholarships in the HSC programme and throughout his five years studying architecture at Ahmadu Bello University, where he graduated in 1973 with a Second Class Upper.
Architecture is in the Bible,” he said. “Hebrews 11:10 speaks of a city whose architect and builder is God. Architecture is creation, while some professions are maintenance.”
He described slum communities as “pieces of architecture in archaic form,” suggesting that with innovation and planning, Nigeria can transform even its most neglected settlements.
Akinrimisi concluded by urging the government and citizens to embrace patriotism, local production and strategic development planning to secure the nation’s future.
