THE recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between Nigeria’s first indigenous auto maker INNOSON and Nigeria Air Force for the fabrication and manufacture of spare parts signposts a new dawn in our quest for technological development.

RATHER than cast this discourse in the mould of a “rejoinder” to Godwin Obaseki’s interactive session with the Vanguard newspaper edition of Sunday, March 13, 2016 (Pages 38 and 39), this piece should be read from the perspective of a “reminder” that an inveterate undertaker cannot metamorphose into a giver of life or a harbinger of good tidings especially considered in the fact that Godwin Obaseki has been at the epicenter and vortex of the retrograde economic measures and woes of Edo State.

APOLOGIES to Dr. Ben Okri for stealing the title of his 1991 explosive book, the Famished Road his Booker prize winning literary work. Dr. Okri’s lush style and distinctive narration of spirit world and realism is imitable.

Many Nigerians have followed the trial of the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh closely. Interestingly, the court trial has now been subjected to media trial.

The present economic downturn occasioned by dwindling oil prices in the international market, has not only led to frantic calls for economic diversification, it has also opened our eyes to our deeply flawed laws currently inhibiting business competitiveness and obstacles on the way of investors – foreign and local – who genuinely want to invest in the country. The concomitant negative effect of these deeply flawed and obsolete laws over the years had seen the whittling of businesses in Nigeria at a geometric rate and the permanent lockdown on long term investments in our potentially huge non-oil sector. Therefore, it has become imperative to remove the anti-business obstacles if the urgent quest to navigate the economy away from hitting the rocks due largely to over dependence on revenue from crude oil exports is to be achieved.