The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote who is still one of the few who have managed to maintain their wealth status since Nigeria’s economy hit a technical recession has advice on how we can make a good come-back in less than two years. In a recent interview with CNBC Africa’s Wole Famurewa, he spoke about how unfortunate it is that at a time when countries like Togo and Cote d’Ivoire are recording notable improvements in their economies, Nigeria has found itself on the edge of a depression.

What’s worse? He doesn’t seem to approve of the recent decision of the Federal Government to get loans from the IMF and World Bank. According to him, all we need is the political will to get out of the recession.

Here are some of his suggestions:

We have to recognize the need for liquidity; sell off some government assets
In his words: “If I had challenges in my company, I would not hesitate to sell assets to remain afloat to get to the better times because it doesn’t make any sense for me to keep any assets and then suffocate the whole organisation.” He suggested the government’s interests in some of its joint ventures as some of the assets that can be easily sold off to get enough money to shore up our reserves with. He also suggested that the government sells off the African Finance Corporation which he estimates can fetch an easy $800 million.

To investors…
Aliko Dangote admonishes continued belief in Nigeria. Enough belief and confidence to bet on what he called “a very large economy”. He advised that business owners not only believe in Nigeria, but also, start to find innovative ways of doing business. According to him, Dangote as group had been diversifying its businesses by taking on mega projects in various sectors of the economy and so the group has not felt as much of the negative effects of diversification as it would have otherwise.

Diversification
As a build up from the last point his advice that we need to diversify was not only directed to the government. He admonished those in the private sector also diversify their businesses.
And specifically to the government, he advised that they need to create incentives for the companies that will invest in order to generate the new/diversified businesses. He said that the government needs not fear that it will lose more money by extending incentives because what it gives in incentives, the government always gets back in taxes. He cited the Companies tax, value added tax, education tax, withholding tax, and even 10 percent of a companies dividends as some of the income that the Nigerian legal infrastructure affords the government by way of revenue from private direct investments in Nigeria.

Public Private Partnerships
He said the government needs to get its capital projects off the ground as soon as possible by facilitating lots of partnerships with private companies who can source for funds to speed up the completion process of these projects. According to him, what the government will get out of this is not only the large number of jobs it will facilitate for its citizenry but also the ultimate credit for the projects at the end of the day.

Remember that Mr. Dangote had already given advice on how to structure the economy in 2014. He was one of the few who advocated the removal of subsidy while most people clamoured for it.

It’s as good a time as it gets to take advice from someone who has experience in generating wealth irrespective of economic challenges.

Watch the video below: