Nigeria is currently Africa’s super power with the largest resources both in human and material parameters. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometers with youthful population almost 2/3 of her population, a colossal human capital which an investor would like to exploit to boost their productivity in a progressive economy.
Nigeria depends majorly on the oil natural resources, which made her one of the biggest oil producing nations in the global market. Due to her monolithic income generation, the effect of COVID-19 pandemic and the present Ukrain- Russia war have taken a great toll on our economy and living standard, as inflation and scarcity have crept into our economy.
As a result of this, the oil sector seems not to have enough to depend on any longer, hence the need for Nigeria to diversify its economy away from oil.
The oil sector contributes 8.93 percent to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Nigeria is blessed with natural resources, vast land, good weather and human capital and with advent of technology it is high time we looked the way of agriculture and perhaps mining as a way of diversification.
Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world, but in terms of value addition, agriculture contributes 23.92 percent to the Nigerian economy.
As a case in point, China has since 1980 undergone a series of reformed policies aimed at transforming its economic system, from a planned economy to a market-oriented economy by combining the planning economic system from socialism with a market mechanism from capitalism. But all these reforms started through agriculture. China lays more emphasis on food security and lifting her people out of poverty, so they leveraged on investment in agricultural policies to create change and guarantee growth and empowerment.
On this premise, government at all levels should be thinking in joining hands together in this direction to pull the nation out from food scarcity to food security through the instrumentality of agriculture. The first language of individual’s stomach is hunger and if the answer is provided the person doesn’t care who is ruling him as president or senator that is what food can do, but without it the person doesn’t care if heaven falls.
Agriculture is a huge industrial pivotal due to its value chain and other agro-base companies that can emerge from its produce. Nigeria has all it takes to become superpower nation with all the natural endowments God has blessed us with, but the missing link is purposeful leadership to harness our potential and deliver the nation from its hydra headed predicaments. Huge investment in agriculture is food security if all things being equal vis-a-vis physical security devoid of banditry, kidnapping, unknown-government activities by some youths in certain region and some other vices.
Multiple streams of income for our nation is the way to go coupled with devolution of power to states, local governments to exercise some rights to harness and harvest their natural mineral resources and remit to the centre what belongs to the centre. For all these to succeed, we must kill corruption else corruption will kill us as a nation.
Bello Shehu Shuni,
Damaturu, Yobe state
[email protected]
08035114465.
