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Creating a competitive Nigeria based on shared economic vision can only be achieved under a true federalism, business leader and economic managers advocated at the epoch making event on competitive strategy organised by BusinessDay in Lagos yesterday. To them, the present arrangement whereby all decisions including resources are controlled from the centre is at variance with the country’s vision of becoming among the top 20 economies in the world by year 2020.
Those who spoke at the event where Harvard professor, Micheal Porter, said that competitiveness depends on the productivity with which a nation uses its human, capital and natural resources included, Shamsuddeeen Usman, minister of national planning, Babatunde Fashola, Adams Oshiomole, Peter Obi, governors of Lagos, Edo and Anambra states respectively, Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service and Ben Akabueze, commissioner for finance, Lagos State. 
The stakeholders agreed with Porter when he said that the process of economic development under the new model requires a collaborative process involving the private sector, government at multiple levels, universities, labour and civil society, but quickly postulated that non practice of true federalism has denied Nigeria these benefits. 
They further argued that a situation where resources come from the centre and disbursed at the discretion of the Federal Government, while responsibilities and expectations on the other hand come from the bottom of the ladder leaves much to be desired.
Also, the decaying infrastructure, public institutions and the prevailing situation where businesses are run at prohibitive costs on generating sets cannot produce a competitive entity. Besides, a situation whereby bureaucracy is at its best where chains of signatures are required for clearing of goods while man hours are lost and in most cases goods are abandoned at the ports, only to be auctioned later do not encourage a competitive spirit.
The current defective electoral system which produces leaders whose allegiance and loyalty are not to the electorate but to their political godfathers who put them there was also identified as retrogressive to the vision of a greater society.
Governor Oshiomhole, for instance, observed that the current dispensation where a lot of issues such as electricity and roads are outside the purview of state governments affect the ability of states to improve quality of lives of their citizens. Besides, he said that the issue of corruption is yet to be tackled, calling for a quick resolution of the crisis in both the power and education sectors.
Governor Obi believes that a lot has gone wrong to the extent that federalism as currently practised has left the state governments at the mercy of the Federal Government in the area of basic amenities, security among others.
He faulted the current revenue allocation formula which, he said does not recognise the actual needs of the federating units. Besides, he said the current crisis in the nation’s universities is an indication that the leaders of tomorrow who are supposed be implement the vision are not being properly taken care of. 
He berated the long chains in government business, saying that no genuine private sector operator would be encouraged to do business under such an environment. For instance, he said while it takes only two weeks for goods to be shipped to Nigeria, the same goods spend about two months at the ports with about 79 signatures required before clearance as against eight in Benin Republic. 
Obi faulted the present arrangement whereby political leaders have become absentee leaders, preferring to stay outside their states. The governor said that in most cases, the private sector operator is helpless.
Listing the benefits of private public collaboration, Governor Fashola attributed the level of success in the development of infrastructure recorded by his administration to the arrangement. He called for the cooperation of citizens to ensure the competitiveness of Nigeria.
Omoigui-Okauru faulted multiplicity of taxes by some state governments and called for collaboration between state and federal governments to facilitate Nigeria’s competitiveness. 
On his part, Akabueze faulted the constitution on which most of government’s actions are derived, saying that it does not reflect the true aspirations of all Nigerians as claimed in the document.
Speaking on the topic ‘Creating a competitive Nigeria: towards a shared economic vision’, Porter said nations compete to offer more productive environment for business, adding that the public and private sectors play different but inter-related roles in creating a productive economy.
According to him, competitiveness depends on the productivity with which a nation uses its human, capital and natural resources. “It is not what industries a nation competes in that derives prosperity, but how it competes”, he said.
He further said that Nigeria has all the resources to be a developed economy, noting that productivity sets the sustainable standard of living especially in terms of wages, returns on capital and natural resources.
He harped on the need for government at all levels to create the enabling conditions for productivity and foster private sector development, adding that prosperity could only be derived from increasing productivity in goods and services. Companies, he added, are the central actors in any developed economy.
He observed that the fundamental problem of the Nigerian economy could be attributed to the absence of a shared vision between the public and private sector.
Porter said “a shared vision across the stakeholders in the society is needed for the development of the economy. Economic development is a collaborative process involving the private sector, government at multiple levels, universities labour and civil society”.