LLENGES OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF NIGERIA’S REVENUE DRIVE

MONO-CULTURAL ECONOMY AND THE CHALLENGES OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF NIGERIA’S REVENUE DRIVE

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Despite abundant natural and human resources, Nigeria remains a poor country. Up to the end of the 1960s, the country was self-sufficient in food
production and even a net exporter of agricultural produce. Nigeria, since the 70s has been a mono-cultural economy relying heavily on oil as its major
income earner. The implication is that the dynamics of the economy is at the whims and caprices of the price of oil, which for the most part, has been volatile
(Enoma and Mustafa, 2011). The major fallout of this fragile structure of the Nigerian economy is a situation where the economy has been growing without
creating jobs and reducing poverty (Onodugo, 2013). The on-hand explanation to this economic paradox is that the oil sector that produces about 90% of
export earnings are in the hands of less than one percent of the Nigerian population dominated by expatriates and members of the political class who control
production and the proceeds respectively. Worse still, the sector is disconnected from other tiers and sectors of the economy and thus ores little or no linkage and multiplier elect to the economy as a whole. The adverse consequences of over dependency on oil trade heightened the need and call to diversify Nigerian economy away from oil towards the direction of non-oil export trade. Proponents of this increased proportion of non-oil export argue that the non oil trade has great potentials to propel Nigerian economy to the desired growth and development. For instance, Onwualu (2012) maintains that the value
chain approach to agriculture has the potentials to open up the economy and generate various activities which are capable of creating jobs and enhancing
industrialization and thus makes the non-oil sub-sector to hold the aces for future Nigerian sustainable economic growth.

MONO-CULTURAL ECONOMY AND THE CHALLENGES OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF NIGERIA’S REVENUE DRIVE