#Nigeria > Our Country Has To Stop Relying On Just Oil – VP Osinbajo

Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was ready to diversify the nation’s economy to end over-dependence on oil.

Speaking in Lagos, at the 6th National Conference of the Academy For Entrepreneurial Studies (AES), with theme Diversification: Roadmap to Nigeria’s Economic Recovery, Osinbajo noted that diversification and the nation’s economic recovery captures the major challenges the Buhari administration is poised to address.

The conference was chaired by former Chief of General Staff, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (retd.).

However, the vice president who wasrepresented by a Director at the Ministry of Labour & Productivity, Mrs. Maureen Ovie, expressed worry that agriculture and mining, which were the primary drivers of Nigeria’s economy, have been abandoned since the 70s for crude oil, adding that this now makes the country a virtual mono-product economy.

“The oil sector remains the dominant revenue carrier earner accounting for about 70 percent of Nigeria’s export earnings. However, this mono-product status is essentially predisposed to the vagaries and vulnerabilities of the global market with attendant consequences for the growth and development of the national economy.

“The country’s economy must be on a trajectory of steady growth for the aspirations of Nigerians to be fully accomplished. We must therefore strive to ensure that indicators of other sectors of the economy sustain a steady growth in order to attain our lofty ideals,” the vice president said.

Citing the 2015 International Monetary Fund (IMF) update on the World Economic Outlook (WEO), which says there is a shortfall of about 0.8 percent points between projected growth figures of 3.3 percent and actual of about 2.2 percent, the VP said this weak global growth performance makes it imperative for Nigeria to be restructured.

“Riding on this weak global growth performance, is the decline in the price of crude oil, which deeply impacts our economy due to its‎ heavy reliance on revenues generated from the oil and gas sector, thereby affecting consumption, savings and investments.

“We cannot continue like this. We are poised to restructuring this mono-product economic structure where a recession in any of the sectors will not drastically affect the economy. The failure of other sectors to grow is responsible for the unacceptable high rates of poverty, high unemployment rate, high import dependency, high cost of living and low levels of revenues.

“The need for prudence in the management if financial resources‎, integration of economic, financial and employment policies among implementing agencies and addressing critical policy gaps is paramount if we must achieve poverty reduction and subsequent acceptable standards of living for our people.”