The routes to individual and state wealth creation

The principle behind individual and state wealth creation is in efficient human capital development, efficient natural resource utilisation, efficient capital market, efficient economic policies and financial prudence. Various financial coaches and experts like Pastor Sam Adeyemi (Build Real Wealth: Practical Steps to Regain Financial Stability), Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter (Rich Dad Poor Dad), Todd Tresidder (18 Essential Lessons from a Self-Made Millionaire), Steve Siebold (How Rich People Think), J. L. Collins (The Simple Path to Wealth), Michael W. Zisa (The Early Investor: How Teens and Young Adults Can Become Wealthy (Investing Fundamentals for Wealth Creation)) etc, opined that wealth can be created by individuals. The summary of their various books is that individuals can plan and work towards being wealthy. Wealth can be achieved through one or two or all of the following means.

One is through determination and working hard towards becoming wealthy. Numerous wealthy people like Bill Gates, Paul Allen, siblings Richard and Maurice McDonald, Razak Akanni Okoya, Tiwa Savage, David Adeleke (Davido), and J. K. Rowling started business or wrote books or sang at a very early age with the aim of becoming wealthy. 

Two is through sheer providence. Some people are not set out in business to be wealthy but became one through amazing grace. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, USA, during the Great Depression, at the age of 40. Sanders turned his hobby into business so as to get regular income. He identified the potential of restaurant franchising, and the first “Kentucky Fried Chicken” franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1952.

KFC popularised chicken in the fast-food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. Branding himself “Colonel Sanders”, the founder became a prominent figure of the American fast food industry, and his image remains widely used in KFC advertising. The company’s rapid expansion made it too large for Sanders to manage, so in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Jr and Jack C. Massey. Sanders became a multi-billionaire at the age of 88 in 1974. 

Three is through lottery like Brad Duke or inheritance like Yang Huiyan. Brad Duke’s life changed when he scooped the eight figure sum 19-years-ago. Brad won $85m (£67 million) in the lottery in 2005 and has now become a billionaire after learning from past winners’ mistakes. 

With a net worth of some $34 billion credited to her and family, 39-year-old Yang Huiyan – the vice-chairwoman of Chinese real estate firm, Country Garden – easily takes the crown as the richest woman in China. All the way back in 2007, Yang was pronounced the richest woman in the country after her farmer-turned-entrepreneur father transferred 70 percent of the company’s shares to her, making her the majority shareholder of the business he founded. More people, especially youths, are looking for their fortune in ‘Grace of God’, lottery and inheritances because they were not taught to believe in hard-work. These youths are aware that politicians are the richest class in most developing nations and not manufacturers or farmers despite foods being more important than politics.

Adam Smith, in his book, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, published in 1776, stated that individuals, groups or nations can make money by spending less than the amount they made in a given period. Adam Smith’s writings influence economies today as he believed wealth is created via labour, and self-interest spurs people and state to use their resources like land, including its mineral resources, labour and human capacity, to earn money. Smith’s theories that economies thrive with competition, capitalism, and a free market are alive and well accepted up till today. What Smith opined was that to make wealth, individuals, organisations and states should first identify which sector they have “comparative advantage” and concentrate on the products or services which they can produce better than others to earn maximum ‘profit’.

According to Smith, the sole purpose of holding money is to facilitate the circulation of goods and services. When individuals are aware and ready to engage in a business including farming, investment, manufacturing and trade, the poverty in the state will reduce. Wealth is created when as many people as possible in a society have access to money. It is the primary function of any good government to create avenues for people to make money. The good news is that there is no individual that is useless in any given society! The principle behind mass wealth creation is for the government to reduce corruption and practice rule of law. When there is level playing ground in any nation, that is, meritocracy is adopted and favouritism is jettisoned, citizens will innovate and invent services, goods and products that can earn them and government income.

A situation where those in leadership positions are also government contractors will not yield sustainable wealth in any nation! The worst economic situation that can happen to any nation is to have a corrupt leadership class or symbol of corruption in leadership position. Every team member of a corrupt leader will believe corruption is a way of life! Those that are supposed to till the ground as farmers and earn income for living will rather become indolent and beg for money or go into crime to survive. Nigeria remains the capital of poverty in the world not because it has no human and natural resources but because of a leadership gap. Relative higher expenditure on public governance against food security, education and health is pseudo-wealth creation.

To make more people wealthy like the USA, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong, developing nations must reduce their incidences of corruption, create efficiency in the system; that is, look for means of putting more people to work, especially the youths and young people. Those that cannot be put to work should be on maintenance salaries (social investment). Developing nations must also balance the budget so that there will be equity between the expenditures on compulsory education of children and youths, defence and infrastructure development. Youth development should be given more priority because it is sustainable. Cost of governance, which in private sector parlance is ‘administrative cost’, is damn too high and cannot reduce the poverty level in Nigeria. The expenditure on defence which is higher than for education in a country with low literacy level is anti-development. Education is a sure means of financial breakthrough!

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