An economic expert, Mr Olu Odugbemi has called on the Nigerian government to beyond the talks, shift focus from being dependent on oil and diversify to grow the economy of the country.
Odugbemi, who has decades-old experience in the banking sector and business, noted that oil which was a blessing to the country, in actual sense, has now become a commodity draining billions of dollar from Nigeria and her people.
According to him, the Nigerian government, over the years has not been able to maximise benefits from the natural resources on its soil. He explained that oil is gradually becoming problematic as the citizens of the country are not enjoying the gains of living in an oil-producing country.
Speaking as a guest speaker at the ‘Economic Outlook For 2022’ event organised by Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, Ikeja, monitored by The New Diplomat, Odugbemi explained that Nigerians are always at the receiving end when oil prices go up or down at the international market.
He added that whenever oil prices go out, there will be high inflation in the country and if the price comes down the country won’t have enough revenue because of its high dependency on the precious liquid.
In his words, “Oil is practically a curse to us. When oil prices go up, fuel prices go up because of the illusion of subsidies. When oil prices go down, we don’t have revenue. So up or down, we’re in a mess. But God forbid, we won’t be in a mess. And these are the things that our policymakers need to look at. We can’t continue to go round on this.”
Speaking further, the banking chief called on the government to engage more in trade as the country is blessed with lots of natural resources. He said that Nigeria can take advantage of its enormous resources to develop the infrastructural sector of the country.
He continued: “Debt is not what Nigeria needs, what has put us in trouble is not what we need. What we need is trade. God has given us alot of things to trade with. Take oil away, we have copper, gold, several metals that you need for renewable. What Nigeria needs to do is to approach nations and say we want to trade with you. Crude is almost $100, I think what we’re producing today is about 1.4 million barrels a day. OPEC gave us 1.8 million barrels per day we can’t even produce it because we didn’t invest, they just remit money to us, and we’re spending it, we need to invest a lot in agricultural sector.
“Give Germany gas and go into a deal with them, let Siemens help us fix our electricity. Give China our gas, crude and other minerals, let China come and build our infrastructure, bullet trains, airport, ports and roads. It’s not rocket science. Give the Americans oil, let them give us caterpillar to fix our roads. We’ve seen what Dangote did from airports to wherever that you don’t need much, granite is in this country, cement is in this country we just need caterpillars to help us roll it and we are up and running.”
