Nigeria ought to have developed with oil money – NNPC GMD
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru, has said that because of the quantity of crude oil in Nigeria, the country ought to be doing better than its current state.
Dr. Baru, while delivering a lecture at the 40th convocation ceremony of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, said countries like Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that took the right steps at the right time are already thriving on sectorspecific development such as the financial sector of Bahrain, airlines and logistics in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, downstream petrochemicals and mining in Saudi Arabia.
At the lecture session chaired by the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, the NNPC boss spoke on “Oil and Gas Industry and the Nigerian State: Enduring Value, Promoting Economic Integration and Social Stability”.
Dr. Baru, while tracing the evolution of the Nigeria’s economy, pointed out that Nigeria, unlike Qatar and others who used oil dollars to jump-start and diversify their economy, abandoned its previous economic mainstay after the exploration of oil.
According to him, “steady but volatile flow of hard currencies accrued from crude oil took our attention away from agriculture and solid minerals development; as a result, our people, by circumstances they had never chosen, began a journey of necessity, from rural to urban areas in search of better livelihood. Problems of unemployment, corruption, wasteful execution of moribund projects soon took over our national development sphere.
“As time goes by, agriculture that was known as job for the assiduous and the affluent in the developed part of the world was relegated to the job of the peasants and less privileged in Nigeria. Things changed quickly as oil boom brought about distortion in our production and consumption patterns, which gave a false twist to the Nigeria economy. Agriculture and mining which were the primary drivers of the economy were relegated in the 70’s for crude oil which now makes the country a virtual mono- product economy”.
While noting that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has put plans in place to exploit success stories of Qatar and others, Baru pointed out that embracing various sectors such as agriculture, mining, and manufacturing can rescue the nation from the current economic doldrums.