• Dr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN

Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) is offerring insights on how Nigeria can achieve a ₦1 Quadrillion economy in 10–15 years.

Dr Agbakoba, in a letter: IDEAS FOR A QUADRILLION NAIRA ECONOMY IN 10 to 15 YEARS, dated November 7, 2025, and addressed to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun,  propose three transformative reforms that could create the fundamentals and unlock over 1.5 quadrillion Naira in economic values.

The document reads: “

Dear Honourable Minister,

“I refer to your recent statement, “Nigeria Turns Towards Prosperity.” You highlighted the Tinubu government’s significant achievements including GDP growth, declining inflation, stabilized exchange rates, increased foreign reserves, and improved oil production.

Despite these successes, exchange rate volatility remains our most pressing challenge.

We currently have one of the highest currency volatilities in Africa, with the naira depreciating by over 40% in 2024 alone, ranking among the continent’s worst performing currencies.

With 1 billion naira worth less than 1 million dollars, demand naturally tilts toward the dollar. The root cause is simple.

The naira lacks fundamentals—tangible economic pillars that give people reason to hold and use.

To reverse this, we must create fundamentals to back the naira. I propose three transformative reforms that could create these fundamentals and unlock over 1.5 quadrillion naira in economic value.

The first is land and real estate titling.

1. Land and Real Estate Titling Reform

Studies done by the World Bank, PwC, and my firm OAL show that 90% of Nigerian land and real estate have tainted, defective, or no titles.

This creates “dead capital”—assets that cannot be traded, serve as collateral, and cannot be indexed to the financial system.

Economist Hernando de Soto demonstrated in his book “The Mystery of Capital” that converting dead capital into productive assets through formal property rights revolutionizes developing economies.

Margaret Thatcher called De Soto’s work a potential “enormously beneficial revolution” that addresses the fundamental weakness of Third World economies: the lack of property rights and enterprise frameworks.

Property titling reform transforms dead capital in land and real estate into legally recognized assets. Owners can use their land or homes as collateral to access credit. Banks become willing to lend because the property now represents secure collateral with enforceable legal backing.

This process releases the equity locked in land, converting illiquid assets into financial capital that can circulate through the economy.

The result is substantial new liquidity—more individuals and businesses gain access to loans, properties become tradable assets, and dormant wealth enters productive use.

The foundation for reform is already being laid. Your administration is implementing the National Land Registration, Documentation and Titling Programme, which aims to digitize land records and create a unified, transparent system. What is needed now is acceleration and scale.

By indexing property values to the financial system through digital integration and legal harmonization across federal and state systems, we can create an instant credit market worth potentially thousands of times our GDP.

The money flow would then be available to finance development across the nation.

Unlocking trapped property assets that are presently dead capital will encourage investors who currently prefer to buy properties abroad to buy in Nigeria.

This will deepen naira denominated asset markets, reduce dependency on dollar denominated assets for wealth storage, and strengthen demand for the naira by creating viable local investment alternatives.

Using the World Bank and PwC’s conservative estimates of $900 billion in dead capital, at today’s rate of ₦1,500 to $1, this represents 1.5 quadrillion naira.

The economic impact of releasing 1.5 quadrillion naira into productive use cannot be overstated.

If this is done with the same strategic approach as the tax reform, it will transform Nigeria’s economy, provide sustainable backing for the naira, and create the foundation for long term prosperity.

By creating a vast, liquid real estate market indexed to the financial system, land titling reform establishes a critical fundamental that anchors the naira’s value and dramatically reduces exchange rate volatility. I must also acknowledge challenges of inflationary pressure. Let me now move to the next coequal fundamental, and that is a credit economy.

Naira-denominated credit will boost domestic consumption of locally produced goods and services, reduce import demand and foreign exchange pressure.

2. Credit Economy Expansion

Nigeria operates a cash economy. This limits the economy’s potential because people can only buy what they can afford.

By contrast, a well-developed credit system allows people to buy what they cannot afford provided they manage their debt. For instance, 90% of Americans cannot afford a house without a mortgage.

In the same vein, any Nigerian who can pay rent can afford a mortgage, but this is not possible without a legal framework.

A robust policy and legal framework to support a credit process will be transformational. 200 million Nigerians, each with ₦300,000 in credit facilities, would inject ₦60 trillion into the economy.

Naira-denominated credit will boost domestic consumption of locally produced goods and services, reduce import demand and foreign exchange pressure.

A thriving naira credit market will deepen domestic financial markets and make the naira more attractive as an asset and reduce the speculative attacks that drive exchange rate volatility.

When citizens can access credit in naira to own homes, start businesses, and build wealth, the currency gains intrinsic value and stability.

This credit infrastructure becomes a vital fundamental—a reason for people to hold and transact in naira—thereby reducing our vulnerability to exchange rate shocks.

3. Agricultural Mechanization

In the United States, only 2% of the workforce are in agriculture, yet the sector contributes 5.5% to GDP and generates $1.5 trillion annually. In Nigeria, by contrast, 30 to 38% of the workforce, 15 to 19 times more workers proportionally, is employed in agriculture.

With our GDP at approximately $188 billion, the sector contributes 25 to 26% to GDP but generates only $47 to 49 billion annually, less than one thirtieth of America’s agricultural output despite having a vastly larger workforce.

This stark disparity reveals a fundamental truth: productivity, not the number of workers, determines agricultural success.

America achieves higher output with fewer workers through mechanization and a fully developed value chain: cold storage facilities, food processing plants, packaging companies, logistics networks, agricultural equipment manufacturing, fertilizer production, warehousing, quality control laboratories, marketing and distribution channels, agricultural finance services, and export infrastructure.

Nigeria, meanwhile, remains trapped at subsistence level using manual tools: hoes and cutlasses.

The transformation we need is mechanization, and the potential money flow would be tremendous. With a well developed policy and legal framework, capital will flow into the economy.

The agricultural sector is badly impacted by the titling challenge as defective and tainted land titles are precisely why we remain at subsistence level. Farmers cannot access capital for mechanization without proper collateral.

Moving from subsistence to mechanized agriculture will increase productivity, reduce post harvest losses, enhance food security, and position Nigeria as a net agricultural exporter.

Agricultural exports will generate substantial foreign exchange earnings, increasing FX supply and strengthening the naira.

More critically, food self sufficiency will eliminate the need to import basic staples, currently a major source of FX demand.

Reducing food imports alone could save billions of dollars annually, directly stabilizing exchange rates and reducing imported inflation. When a nation feeds itself and exports the surplus, its currency strengthens naturally.

Agricultural transformation thus creates a powerful fundamental: robust FX earnings and reduced import dependency that provides lasting stability to the naira and shields it from volatility.

What I have done here is to show that if these three reforms are implemented, along with many others like oil and gas, maritime sector optimization, and manufacturing, and are fully developed to back the naira, the naira can exchange at optimal rates because there is a fundamental backing it.

If well handled, we will see significant improvement in the next few years with reduced volatility and a stronger naira.

Honourable Minister, this is not going to be easy work. It is painstaking but doable.

The success of the tax reform shows it can be done. I project a timeline of 10 to 20 years, which is not too far-fetched.

During my lifetime, I have witnessed three presidents whom each served 8 years, so it can be done.

The difference between incremental improvement and transformative change is ambition matched with execution.

These reforms would not merely stabilize the naira; they would fundamentally restructure our economy and create sustainable prosperity for generations.

I have attached for your consideration Olisa Agbakoba Legal’s October policy paper, “Devolution is the Solution Foundational Reform Agenda for Nigeria’s Transformation.”

• Timipre Sylva
In the past forty-eight hours, I have been inundated with calls from members of the press, political associates, and concerned individuals regarding a circulating report alleging that His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, has “fled” the country in connection with certain purported matters.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is true that the residence of His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, was recently subjected to a raid by individuals believed to be operatives of the Defence Headquarters.

During the said operation, considerable damage was inflicted upon the property.
Despite sustained efforts, I have been unable to ascertain the reasons or authorisation for this raid.

To the best of my knowledge, the officers involved did not provide any categorical explanation for their actions, either at the time or subsequently.

It is important to state unequivocally that His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, and his esteemed wife, Her Excellency, Alanyingi Sylva, were both outside the country at the time of the incident.

As at my last communication with His Excellency, he was engaged in a routine medical check-up in the United Kingdom, after which he was scheduled to proceed to Malaysia to attend a professional conference.

The next development I was made aware of, regrettably, were reports circulating across social media and other platforms concerning the raid on his residence.

While the Defence Headquarters has already debunked the swirling rumours of a coup in Nigeria, it is important to state emphatically that Chief Timipre Sylva, CON, has no involvement whatsoever—either in planning or in logistics—with any such plot.

Chief Sylva is a thoroughbred democrat, whose entire political journey has been defined by his faith in democratic processes and institutions.

From the 1990s, when he was first elected into the Old Rivers State House of Assembly, to his tenure as Governor of Bayelsa State, Sylva has achieved every milestone through transparent, democratic engagement and the will of the people.

His unwavering support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a matter of public record.

It remains fresh in memory how he mobilized the entire Bayelsa APC structure to unanimously endorse President Tinubu at the APC Bayelsa Expanded Stakeholders’ Meeting.

These rumours are nothing more than the handiwork of desperate and narcissistic politicians, already consumed by ambitions for 2027, who see Sylva as their last real obstacle—a man whose political presence and credibility continue to expose their dark, self-serving ambitions.

• Julius Bokoru
Special Assistant on Media and Public Affairs to H.E. Timipre Sylva

By Babs Daramola

Image credit: City Arts & Lectures

Mercy, in its pure form, is one of humanity’s noblest virtues. But in Nigeria, mercy has taken a new career path: political, profitable, and proudly selective.

The gates of our prisons have opened once again, and out have walked some of the nation’s most accomplished offenders: drug barons, kidnappers, fraudsters, illegal miners, and yes, even that beautiful wife who so savagely sliced her husband’s blossom.

Her crime was passionate, her punishment heavy, but five years of some theatrics and intrigues, she too has found salvation.

The kind that comes with a presidential signature.We are told this is compassion…an exercise in humanity.

We are told it is meant to decongest our correctional centres, as though the cure for a broken roof is to burn down the house.

Yes, our prisons are overcrowded, but that is because our justice system is slow, our police corrupt, and our facilities a disgrace.

True reform begins with structure and sincerity; not with grand gestures that let the most dangerous walk free while the poor rot behind bars.

The defenders of this mercy mission insist that many of the freed have changed.

They have shown remorse, embraced morality, and in some cases, even enrolled in university programmes.

It’s inspiring, really. So perhaps this is the new gospel: repent theatrically and study strategically.

If you’re serving time, the new get-out-of-jail-free card is simple: write JAMB, attend church or mosque, quote scripture, and look remorseful on visitation days.

A little performance and a little paperwork might earn you a handshake from heaven, or at least from the presidency.

But in truth, this flood of forgiveness may not be entirely spiritual. Many believe it is political, a careful prelude to 2027.

A strategic rehearsal of compassion designed to warm hearts, build networks, and purchase goodwill long before the next election season.

And to make it look credible, a few genuinely deserving names are sprinkled among the unholy, like sugar on a bitter meal.

Never in the history of this country’s exercise of the presidential prerogative of mercy have so many drug barons, fraudsters, murderers and violent offenders been shown such lavish compassion. It is mercy on an industrial scale.

Generous, convenient, and suspiciously well-timed.It all fits neatly, of course, into the Renewed Hope Agenda. That shining slogan of our times.

Perhaps this is what renewal truly means: renewed freedom for the guilty, renewed despair for the innocent, renewed hope for every criminal who still believes in second chances; not from God, but from government.

If this is the face of hope, then despair must be taking notes.Of course, not all inmates are so fortunate.

The poor man who stole food, the woman imprisoned for a petty debt, the teenager wrongfully accused.

They will remain where they are. They have no sponsors, no connections, no access to the corridors of mercy.

In this land, forgiveness has a hierarchy. The deeper your crime, the higher your chances of redemption; provided you know someone who knows someone.

And yet, we are urged to clap. We are told that this is justice.

Maybe justice redefined. But how do you convince a grieving family that the woman who butchered their son has been “forgiven”?

How do you explain to the international community that convicted drug barons are now enjoying presidential compassion, even as the country claims to be fighting a war on drugs?

What message does that send to our youth: that crime is just ambition with bad timing?

With such highly controversial presidential pardon and clemency, Nigeria’s reputation has just bled a little more.

We make ourselves look unserious before the world. We have just upped our reputation as a nation that punishes honesty but forgives criminal brilliance.

The same government that preaches anti-corruption and moral revival has just declared open season on accountability.

Perhaps this is what renewal truly means: renewed freedom for the guilty, renewed despair for the innocent, renewed hope for every criminal who still believes in second chances; not from God, but from government.

It’s as though the war on drugs, kidnapping, and fraud were mere slogans, conveniently forgotten when the culprits are close enough to power.This is not mercy. It is mockery dressed in compassion.

It is the reckless abuse of one of the most solemn powers granted to leadership: the prerogative of mercy. That power was meant to right wrongs, to ease the pain of those unfairly convicted, or to help the truly reformed rejoin society.

It was never meant to excuse hardened offenders or to reward notoriety.But here, we have turned mercy into policy, and policy into parody.

The state now plays God, handing out forgiveness like party souvenirs.

Our prisons are not being decongested; our conscience is. We are emptying cells but filling the streets with lessons in impunity.

So, to all remaining inmates, take heart. There is still hope. Dust off your notebooks, register for JAMB, join the prison choir, and master the fine art of public repentance.

With enough effort and the right blessings, your own miracle of mercy might soon arrive.

And to the rest of us, the lesson is clear: if you must offend, offend boldly. Small crimes waste time; big crimes get attention. If you must sin, sin memorably: the kind of sin that deserves a headline and a pardon.

For in today’s Nigeria, virtue may earn you respect, but vice might just earn you release.

Mercy, they say, is divine. But in our own creed, is pardon now reserved only for the powerful and the connected — while those truly deserving rot behind the bars?

Perhaps only the politically ungrateful would fail to appreciate this fresh gospel of renewed hope, where crime meets compassion, and both walk free.