A friend invited me this week to yet another group of Nigerians abroad who think that the solution to Nigeria’s problem is to gather money and use it to ”fix things.” I asked how I was personally going to benefit from money I sent and there was no answer, only vague assurances.

Once again, I made the case for determinate selfishness as opposed to indeterminate selflessness which really achieves nothing much in the end but just makes people feel good that they have at least done something. If we want to feel good, why not go all the way?

Nothing else will save Nigeria other than markets and profitable production. Every other effort is like pouring water into a basket. Every action has to be geared towards sustainability and not only temporary relief. Temporary relief is like a narcotic. People get addicted to it.

Diaspora remittances has been like morphine numbing the pain and sustaining the injustice and inequities. The first thing people do when there is a crisis back home is to find a way to send money. I am guilty of that as many others. We don't ask what can stop the constant crisis.

We take it that ”it is Nigeria” and hope yet again that in another cycle of elections and horse-trading, a messiah will emerge to suddenly change things. Truth is that there will be no change especially when there are people who benefit from the dysfunction. Chaos is a ladder.

Why not profit from the chaos ourselves by providing some sanity? Why not create businesses that can generate enough income so that we don't need to send anything home at all?

Many ideas around this have only focused on the mundane and the parochial. There are opportunities.

Healthcare is probably the single largest emergency that remittance money goes to solve. There is one healthcare emergency involving family members of friends every month in Nigeria. The problem seems to compound rather than reduce for many reasons. Nigeria is an unhealthy place.

Beyond the filth and environmental pollution, our diet is a major factor. I remember telling relative that being fat is not a sign of enjoyment but a sign of laziness and overindulgence. He took offence and stopped talking to me until he had avoidable chronic cardiac issues.

We don't have basic clean water and resort to measures to get clean water that create more problems than they solve. The environmental issues from plastic pollution are mounting. This is not unique to Nigeria alone, it is in many other countries. Another opportunity.

Things like providing healthy food, water, preventive healthcare and even therapeutic healthcare are major business opportunities and not just problems. The markets for these are still primitive and not well developed. They are not also as heavily regulated as other sectors are.

Maybe the lack of regulation and standards is also one of the problems we have. NAFDAC was not created to make money and punish people, it was meant to help. Most regulatory agencies focus too much on the negative instead of the positive but that is not even the issue now.

Industry standards can be created or forced by competition. Something like the health insurance marketplace is beginning to create a sense of order. A friend in Florida was raising money to build hospitals back home and he decided to first set up a HMO to manage demand.

I don't see any reason why diaspora people who are in healthcare or insuretech cannot help to fund these types of new marketplace players profitably. The key word profit and NOT philanthropy. Investment opportunities in Nigeria are not well organized as people hide profitability.

Trust is also an issue because of poor governance. Whenever I hear of attempts to organize diaspora investments, people are trying to work from that they think is the answer to the problem instead of solving from problem to potential answers. Diaspora money is NOT a silver bullet

When we have a problem-solving structure back home, diaspora money can become one of the many capital options available.

There are opportunities in the current chaos, if there weren't, the billionaires wouldn't have remained in Nigeria. It all starts with gathering data.

When people can calibrate the opportunity, it then becomes easier to deploy capital. I have seen at least twenty different pitch decks for various businesses in Nigeria this month and I always ask those pitching one question - where is the data that proves this? Zero response.

All those inviting me to those ”Nigerian Savior” groups should only invite me to groups where we are going to talk about making money and not spending money. I just paid $6500 this term as school fees. My eyes dey red.