Nigeria needs to rebuild its technological capabilities that have been lost due to the dissipative policies of premature liberalism of the mid-1980s, chronic underfunding and inefficient public finance management. I therefore proceed with a question: what is the meaning and nature of “industrial capabilities” and for what? There are several dimensions of capabilities including technological and broader Productive and innovative capabilities, which are fundamental prerequisites to economic growth. “Productive capabilities” refer to personal and collective skills, productive knowledge and experiences embedded in physical agents and organisations that firms need to perform different productive tasks.

   The quest for economic growth and transformation starts with the building and mastery of investment, production, and maintenance capabilities. In the early stages, Nigeria imported machinery and technologies for a wide range of sectors including refineries, aluminum. Iron and steel and so on. Successful Asian countries equally imported matured technologies, deployed informal mechanisms, but built on it through domestic reverse engineering, to learn and absorb such technologies. Higher levels of technological capabilities followed in the process of time, with experience and explicit investment in training and learning.

    In other words, successful countries did not start with “building innovation and R&D capabilities”, critical as they are, they focused on support to firms through “technological learning”. This is the process put in place to adapt and improve continuously, through incremental upgrading of product design and process technology. This process results in the acquisition of Production Capabilities.

   In the early years, we prioritised Research and Development (R&D), necessary as they are over building domestic firm-level capabilities. These public R&D laboratories for the most part stand apart from the most immediate needs of local firms and do not address societal needs.

   The same with universities leading to the idea of the aloof “Ivory Towerism”. The result is that we have neither built domestic private sector capabilities nor achieved the goals set out for R&D institutions and universities. Asian countries aggressively supported local firms most of which have evolved over the last few decades into global companies. Over time, with technological maturation, firms, universities and R&D objectives converged.

    The above processes require strong and sacrificial leadership. The Nigerian state, unlike its successful comparators, has experienced industrial backwardness.  The country, despite its abundant human and natural resources, lacks fundamentals of state capacity to foster big transformations even when we have the potential. State capacity has been critical component of sustainable development for successful countries. Development in the broadest term mean a shift away from subsistence agriculture to engagement in high value manufacturing production and export and such changes, driven largely by skilled manpower (technicians, engineers, and scientists).

  Resource profile and the abundance of human capital would suggest a country deserving of the epithet, “giant of Africa”. On the contrary Nigeria qualifies to be called the “The Crippled Giant” as a Nigerian scholar suggested.   In poor and low-income countries, leaders determine in large measure the effectiveness of the public and private sectors.

  Additionally, the pivotal role of leaders’ network, leadership propensities, and the elite in national development are critical. Due to the idiosyncratic conditions of developing countries, the nature of leadership can impact negatively on other factors. Leaders and ‘elites’ especially in developing countries where governments and their leaders hold and control the levers of power tend to determine all other factors.

   Their interests and predilections could push their nation into a trajectory of a positive or negative economic development pathway. In post-colonial states with weakened or absent institutions and poor coordination across the economic system, the evolution of a capable state is critical to the long-term emergence of nations.

   Leadership and capabilities are critical to fostering efficient institutions; especially in navigating complex industrial systems, in terms of defining structures and functions; ensuring necessary financing and creating a coherent management system. The behaviour of governments plays an important role in stimulating or discouraging economic activity, as does the behaviour of entrepreneurs, parents, scientists, or priests.

    For Nigeria do to rebuild its economy and institutions, it must Prioritise Investment in Capabilities at the Factory level.  The locus of production and innovative change activities is the factory floor of the private sector industrial enterprises rather than the formal R&D laboratory. This is where we should focus. For example, the food and agribusiness sector, expected to reach $1 trillion by 2030 are particularly important for Africa that possesses 65 per cent of all uncultivated arable land in the world.

   The continent has the potential to feed itself and export value-added food products to the world; it needs to intensify investment in food processing and logistics. Global agribusiness market is projected to reach $15.50 trillion in 2025; the key factors driving this growth include population increase, globalisation of trade, and advancements in crop protection technologies. Compared with global IT market, it is projected to reach a value of $5.4 trillion in 2025.

   Growth and shift in the structure of agricultural production beyond the agrarian level requires higher skills and knowledge. The transformation of the sector would contribute to rising labour productivity and the creation of new employment opportunities.

   There is also need to promote manufacturing export capabilities as a source of growth. Friedrich List’s Proposals for Economic Development advances this general principle: “A nation is rich and powerful in the proportion in which it exports manufactures, imports raw materials, and consumes tropical products.”This is consistent with Kaldor’s Laws.

   The most effective strategy for rapid economic growth is the accumulation of industrial technology capability to drive sustained exports of manufactures leading to foreign exchange earnings. Asia has, in the long run, grown their economies at a fast rate, by countering import expansion with faster export earnings. African countries have long shortchanged themselves by exporting raw materials that others use as basis for wealth generation. Let us make the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) a zone of production where we deepen manufacturing intra-trade among countries.