Nigeria Should Diversify Economy –Nepad
From Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri, 02.15.2008
The African Peer Review Mission (AFRM) of the New Partnership for Africa ’s Development (NEPAD) has asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to desist from over depending on oil revenue if the nation wants to achieve its economic plan of being one of the world top twenty economies in 2020.
Speaking in Maiduguri , the Country Review Team Leader 1, Professor Shadrack Gutto said the only way for the economic prosperity of Nigeria is by diversifying her revenue from crude oil, stressing that it is about time that the Nigerian government use the resources from the black gold to develop other sectors of the economy.
Gutto explained that using the oil revenue to diversify the economy would assist in building a strong nation and would widen the revenue profile of the nation. He advised the Federal Government to ensure equitable distribution of resources to move the nation forward.
He affirmed that Nigeria need to stop the crisis in the oil producing area by sharing the resources from oil equitably and need to be seen by all as been fair to every constituent part of the country.
He said the visit had made the team made up of experts from other African nations understand the diversity of Nigeria, while maintaining that such diversity in language, ethnicity, religion and geographical locations “cannot be manipulated through human design.”
“There is the need to ensure that the sharing of revenue is equitable and transparent. The oil revenue should be used for the development of other areas of the economy as well as provision of infrastructure in the oil producing communities and less developed areas in the country,” he expressed.
Gutto said that the AFRM team in Nigeria was divided into two groups to interact with civil society groups, non-governmental organizations, government functionaries and agencies with a view to collating the opinions and views of the people on the socio-economic issues affecting the development of African nations, democracy and good governance, tax, issue of the vulnerable ones in the society like women and children, adding that the reports, when compiled, would be submitted to the African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia during the African Union summit in July.
He said the team during their visits to part of the country saw that Nigerians are frank and bold, “Our interactions with the civil societies and other groups elicit opinions and views from the people and corruption in political circle and the society at large was the main discourse. Most people were about the issue of corporate governance, wealth creation, socio-political crisis which was said to be hampering development of the nation and alleged mismanagement of the resources,” Gutto added.
