No doubt, the prevailing economic situation in the country has elicited a series of reactions, postulations and recommendations from a broad spectrum of actors on how to come out of the quagmire. A persistent call that seems to be resonating is the urgent need to diversify from the monolithic and oil-dependent economy to the resourceful and the neglected areas of the economy. Despite this reality, the main question that keeps bothering the minds of all is: Are we really prepared to diversity the economy?
The just-concluded and maiden edition of the New Telegraph Economic Summit themed, “Nigeria: Beyond the Oil Economy”, offered a good platform for academics, government officials, captains of industry, private sector operators, media executives, researchers, financial experts and entrepreneurs, to brain-storm on diversifying the economy under three sessions, by fashioning out a way forward and the issues raised would be implemented by the relevant authorities. I was the rapporteur at the summit.
Welcoming participants, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of New Telegraph newspapers observed that time had come to move Nigeria beyond the oil economy, saying “we all must join hands to liberate our nation from the stranglehold of dependence on just one product”. Egbemode added that “in the days of the cocoa plantations and groundnut pyramids, we did not owe workers’ salaries. We made enough money from what grew from our soil to fulfil all our national obligations. Today, everything that we used to have and enjoy has disappeared. We now have private schools, private hospitals, private boreholes, private power supply, and private security”.
The special guest of honour at the event, Governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Tunji Bello, stressed the need for Nigerians to be bothered by the over-dependence on oil revenue, stating that the nation was already paying the price for the mismanagement of past years due to the failure to strategically position the country’s economy in terms of investment, infrastructure and critical sectors of the economy. On what the Federal Government had been doing to put the economy in proper shape, the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who was represented by Dr. Sarah Alade, Deputy Governor, Economic Policy of the CBN, presented the keynote address entitled, “Returning Nigeria to the Boom Days: Prospects of a Non-Oil Economy”, agreed that the summit could not have come at a better time than now when the country’s economy, largely dependent on oil, was going through trying times on account of the slump in crude oil prices, adding that the challenge was “daunting but it is by no means insurmountable”.
Shedding light on the prospects and challenges in the mining sector, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the lead speaker during the first session of the summit, spoke on, “Digging Deeper for New Wealth: Opportunities in Solid Minerals.” He stated the steady decline of crude oil prices signalled a future in which crude oil either ceases to be a strategic resource in which Nigeria, as a producer, becomes irrelevant to the prospects for economic advancement within the global economic space, noting that the country was no longer sub-Saharan Africa’s sole energy power house. He disclosed that the Muhammadu Buhari administration was determined to fix the mining and agriculture sectors of the economy in order to re-enact the glorious days.
Fayemi, who is also the Chairman, Governing Board, Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, listed other accruing benefits in the solid minerals sector to take care of beneficiation, supporting industries and support services value chain. He restated his previous position that states were free to go into the exploration and exploitation of solid mineral deposits within their jurisdictions. In his concluding remarks, the minister warned that the sector was not for those interested in becoming overnight millionaires or those looking to launder ill-gotten wealth but rather a long-run investment.
In his presentation entitled, “Nigeria Beyond the Oil Economy: Digging Deeper for New Wealth: Opportunity in Solid Mineral Resources”, Dr. Abraham Adepelumi of the Department of Geology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, made far-reaching recommendations on how to better harness the solid minerals opportunities in the country. The way to go include the formulation of an explicit promotion programme based on the principles of comparative advantage or disadvantage and reduction of trade dependence on developed countries by looking for other markets, among others. In his goodwill message, the founder of New Telegraph newspapers and a former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, aligned with the submissions of previous speakers that the nation’s woes were linked to overdependence on the oil and gas industry, as he charged investors and other stakeholders to go into the marine and other non-oil sectors.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the session and a veteran journalist, Mr. Ray Ekpu, has called on both public and private stakeholders to collaborate so as to put in place, the needed framework to make the mining industry thrive because every state of the federation is blessed with one mineral resource or the other and with effective laws, it would be possible to turn around the sub-sector. The lead speaker at the second session was Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, a former Director-General, Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), who presented a paper titled, “Our Heritage, Our Destination in a New Economy”. The tourism icon lamented that oil wealth had beclouded the nation’s sense of initiative and economic vision while promoting a culture of laziness, opportunism and unbridled corruption. Runsewe said that tourism, which is the highest employer of labour in the world, remained an important economic and social phenomenon in the 21st Century service-led economy.
The former NTDC DG identified tourism potentials in the country to comprise ecotourism, cultural/historical tourism, religious tourism and beach tourism, saying “oil is good, tourism is better”. Other contributors also stressed the need to patronise local goods and participate in traditional events as a formidable way of promoting tourism in the country. The National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress and Chief Promoter, Olokun Festival Foundation, Otunba Gani Adams, lent credence to the call for the building of the tourism industry in the country as a commercial venture, without necessarily making recourse to government, because it should be a private sector affair. He also attributed the security challenges facing the country as major impediment to tourism.
Earlier, the chairman of the session and a former Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, had revealed there were so many areas in the tourism sector that could be developed to build the nation’s economy while another discussant and President of the La Campaigne Beach Resort, Dr. Wale Akinboboye, stated that adequate security should be provided, to encourage foreign investment in the country.
The third and the last session, which had the Chief Operations Officer of Bi-Courtney Aviation Service, Ms. Adebisi Awoniyi as its chairperson, focused on agriculture. The various stakeholders, who spoke at the occasion, expressed their concerns over lack of inadequate information on agriculture, mining and other investment opportunities, stressed that accessibility to such would stimulate development while calling on the government to go into partnership with the private sector to provide employment and boost the economy.
On a final analysis, the summit was able to highlight the right path to take in attaining real economic diversification. Participants are, however, curious to note whether the summit would not amount to a mere talk shop. They are interested in knowing if the relevant stakeholders would consider and implement the various suggestions. They are interested in knowing what happens, if the global price of oil suddenly increases. If this happens, are we still going to be talking about diversification? Certainly, these questions deserve to be answered before the second economic summit convenes!
PUNCH
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