The African Development Bank (AfDB) has stated that economic diversification is the only viable option for Nigeria to survive the current global economic downturn occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was stated by the senior special adviser on industrialisation to the president of the AfDB, Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka while delivering the Founder’s Day Lecture of the Igbinedion University, on Monday in Edo state.
He said the country cannot progress and respond favourably to the emerging challenges of the 21st century unless it hastily industrialises its economy from the current overdependence on exportation of crude oil.
“In pursuit of long-term recovery and sustainable development, Nigeria needs urgent economic diversification,” Oyelaran-Oyeyinka said.
“Nothing is more poignantly demonstrative of the danger of over-reliance on a single or narrow range of commodities than the recent crash in oil price we saw in 2020 due to the COVID-19.
“Economic diversification entails a shift away from a single income source (oil and minerals) toward multiple income sources from an increasing spectrum of sectors, products and markets.”
He noted that South Korean economy, which was on the same pedestrian with the Nigerian in 1960s in spite of being non-resource based, had performed incredibly strong through export diversification whereas Nigeria hardly diversified.