Nigeria’s economy beyond crude oil

 It’s widely agreed that the deep recession that Nigeria now faces is an abysmal failure of public administration, economic policy and execution. It is, in effect, the triumph of corruption – one of the cheapest commodities with which the Fourth Republic is commonly associated. Indeed, recession has weakened the confidence of workers, taxpayers and voters in both government and politics. It is a recession that is of unique character, in that there has been a dearth of sorely-need funds, such that 27 out of the 36 states in the country have been declared almost insolvent – unable to pay the salary of their workers. It is a development that has enfeebled the morale of workers in general. It has, besides, tended to question – on the part of would-be local and foreign investors – the wisdom of investing in the country’s economy.

But that is almost forgetting the fact that the Nigerian economy is exquisitely famous for its resilience; for which it is sure to bounce back. It has often been the argument of development economists, since the past four decades, that Nigeria should not have predicated her economy and national development solely on the fortunes of oil, because it was fraught with, sometimes, calamitous danger that comes with a steep dip in the market price of the product. It does seem that, probably, because of the boom years of the post-civil war era, public policy-makers have tended to think, with a laid-back attitude that “for Nigeria, oil is the panacea to any question of economic challenge.”

Since the Biafra war, it would seem that Nigerians have been living in self-denial that the age of agricultural boom was over, that the country needed to rely, quite comfortably, too, on crude oil. The openly hostile reality of today’s recession is one that deflates whatever confidence of those who say that crude oil is the answer to any economic challenges that Nigeria may be confronted with.

For development economists, to see crude oil as having the Midas touch that could neutralise the unfriendly effects of today’s deep recession would be unrealistic. It would be courting a catastrophe of a gargantuan proportion for Nigeria to lean still, openly, heavily on crude oil, in maintenance of her preference to be seen as a mono-product economy. Nigeria does not, whichever way you look at it, compare favourably, with any of the conservative, oil-rich, sheikhdoms of the Middle East, which make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – including Saudi Arabia; all of which are, primarily, dependent on crude oil.

With fat times fast receding into history, Nigeria would do well by heeding the advice of development economists, who argue that it was high time she diversified her economic base; that it was time that she launched, beyond policy pronouncement, what could be akin to a renaissance in expanding – and very firmly, too – her economic base to non-oil products to cushion the unkind effects of today’s deep recession.

Thus, the Buhari era is an auspicious period for Nigeria to retrace her former giant economic steps to the era of cocoa in what was then the Western Region; groundnut, hides and skins, Northern Region; palm oil and coal, Eastern Region; rubber and timber, Mid-west Region, and other untapped minerals and cash crops – zinc, gold, iron-ore, kaolin, copper, yam, cassava, rice, beans, sorghum, beniseed, corn, banana, plantain, citrus fruits of diverse kind – including oranges, amongst others.