As Nigeria clocks 66 years of nationhood, the Mayor of Housing, My-ACE China, has revealed seven obstacles that he said hinder national development.

The real estate success strategist said in an interview in Port Harcourt on October 1, 2026, that the foundation and needs for the very formation of all nations in the world is development.

He said the visions, goals, policies, political manifestos, debates, aspirations and general activities of any and all nations boil down to development. He said this accounts to why comparism talks about developed nations, developing nations, and under developed nations.

He said there’s no over-stating the fact that development determines the identity, prosperity, and posterity of all nations.

He observed that the British met different economically viable nationalities at different stages of development ties, and colonized them. Amalgamation was purely an economic step.

He went on: “Agric revolution of the 1960s and 70s boosted Nigeria’s economy to enviable heights of unprecedented development and prosperity. Oil discovery helped to boost this higher and made Nigeria a giant in Africa. Nigeria’s currency was very high in value. The economy however took a nosedive starting from the 1980s, getting to epic horrific proportions in the last few months with all development indices on historic lows.

“In my opinion, there are seven real barriers to Nigeria’s national development. They include cash money mentality; the go-grabber political culture; personal gratification leadership; holistic extrinsic blame culture; the mental lethargy of non-monetization of problems and obstacles; myopic local small thinking; and lack of courage.”

Giving basic insights, China said there is a large population of young Africans who see cash as money without seeing the real money.

He said since President Richard Nixon of America removed the dollar off the gold standard, cash ceased from being money and became a currency. “And a currency is only as valuable as how fast it exchanges with goods (current of exchange) and how many times it does this. Just as ‘stagnant waters stink’, so does stagnant currency stink. In fact, my mentor Grant Cardone calls unused cash, trash!”

He contended that money is idea, trust, integrity, value, service, solutions, and the oldest money is knowledge; and the biggest money is scale; while the highest currency is relationship, while the latest money is attention.

He bemoaned the fact that almost all Nigerian leaders think cash is money and steal it, stash it away, and even export it (which further exacerbates capital flight). The younger persons stay home to commit fraud. “A few very entrepreneurial ones are frozen in the limiting thoughts that, it takes cash to start a business, and do little or nothing.”

To break away from this shackle, the Mayor of Housing said Nigeria needs men and women who know that real money is not cash and can grow and scale the real money of ideas, trust, integrity, solutions, value, service, knowledge, relationship and attention to national and international levels to break this barrier.

On go-grabber political culture, China regretted that Nigeria has gone from what can Nigeria do you me to; “What can I grab from Nigeria, how much can I grab of it and for how long can I keep grabbing it alone with my family, cronies and friends?”

He said that category has led to giving birth to their types.

He lamented over what he called personal gratification leadership, and borrowed from Sigmund Freud who said maturity is the ability to postpone gratification. The housing expert chose the ‘super-matured’ type of delayed gratification which he said has the selfless ability to postpone personal gratification and seek the gratification of ‘the greater other people’.

He said this type of leaders are very scarce in Nigeria. “The best brains of Nigeria are in the diaspora. The best hands in Nigeria are in the diaspora. And even the few exceptional individuals in Nigeria that are still in Nigeria, have distanced themselves so far away from meddling with national affairs that they are even more distant than those in the diaspora!”

He called for efforts to drag this category into leadership or expect the worst. “There must be a rising and daring to rise of these super-mature leaders”.

China also pointed at what he called holistic extrinsic blame culture, saying the greatest human power is taking responsibility, while the greatest human weakness will be blaming others.

He said during the agric revolution, Nigerians took responsibility but in the oil boom, Nigerians developed entitlement mentality and blaming of others. He quoted Dan Lok who said: “Lame people blame people!”.

He said Nigeria needs individuals who will take it upon themselves to blame no one and take full responsibilities of national development in whatever sector they were passionate about. “And I can beat my chest and say I am one of such individuals. I have not only taken it upon myself to solve the housing problems in Nigeria and Africa, but to do so whether the government helps or not!

“And having started my housing solution journey with that mindset and determination five years ago, we are already making giant strides in our quest and will soon set a global housing revolution that will be led by Nigeria.”

He discussed what he called the mental lethargy of non-monetization of problems and obstacles, saying personal development supersedes and precedes national development.

He went on: “And as my father David Ibiyeomie will say: people make nations. Nations don’t make people.”
He said the greatest personal development core is mindset development!

On seeking to make money from obstacles, the Mayor of Housing quoted the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, a first century philosopher, when he said: “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

He said Nigeria had many ‘profitable problems’. “Until a band of national heroes who see every problem as money, are unleashed within our country, we may end off with foreigners coming to solve our problem and carting away all the fortunes that come from solving such problems.”

China pointed at the Chinese who have found opportunities in Nigeria’s numerous problems, and agreed with Frank Lloyd Wright who said; “The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest.”

He said: “I see the 24 million units of housing deficit in Nigeria as trillions and trillions of money! Until we see problems as money and national problems as big money, we may keep having that as a barrier to national development.”

He said: “Bad people are destroyed by crisis, good people survive them, great people are improved by them”!

He warned against what he called myopic local small thinking, saying there may be some persons doing good things but it may not be noticed at national levels. “Once in a while we even hear such stories of one amazing indigenous solution or another. But without the vision and drive to scale such solutions to the national level, such stories go as they come!

“If the biggest money is scale, not knowing how to scale can only give you small money and bring small local developments.

“Many with very veritable developmental solutions and initiatives only think they can only affect their local space and therefore cannot scale such solutions to national levels. And even when such expansion is suggested, they will say, they lack government support.”

He warned entrepreneurs to always note that most governments are not interested in any form of development. “So myopic thinking by many exceptional individuals who think their contributions cannot be scaled and cannot make much difference, is another barrier to our national development.”

Positing that everything rises and falls on leadership, he said it takes courage to become a leader. “So, everything rises and falls on courage. It takes courage to act. It takes courage to look for money in problems. It takes courage to fail and trying again and keep trying until you succeed. It takes courage to be super matured enough to sacrifice your own delayed gratification for the gratification of others. It takes courage to believe in a country that everyone is blaming everyone and no one is committed to rescue. It takes courage to take responsibility and take action on any developmental initiatives. It takes courage to dare. And most importantly it takes courage to break these seven barriers to national development.”

China declared his belief, saying the future of Nigeria lies solely in the hands of private individuals of exceptional grit and natural leadership prowess equipped with a daring belief to succeed against all odds and against all political bureaucratic wars, and with or without government support.

He recalled some physical barriers to economic growth and listed them as poor infrastructure, human capital inadequacies, primary product dependency, declining terms of trade, savings gap with inadequate capital accumulation, corruption with poor governance and civil war impacts, and foreign currency gap.

Individual independence vital:

The Mayor of Housing said Nigeria must guarantee individual independence to citizens.
China, who said individual independence supersedes and precedes national independence, said every Nigerian needed personal independence to think, the independence to produce financial independence, and above all, independence from his landlord.

The real estate success strategist stated that individuals most times do not need a shoulder to lean on because they have legs and hands to work. “They only need a level-playing ground to operate and do their own things.

“A fit athlete only needs a well-laid field with marks on where to go, but when the track for a fit eager athlete is riddled with potholes, thorns, snares and traps, it becomes no longer a question of willingness and ability but a question of opportunity there is no track for him to run.

“This is because the track becomes a trap when the track is not conducive for the runner to run.”