The Eagle Online: Two of Nigeria’s powerful political players – the Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim – have said the country is headed for doom if it fails to diversity its economy from relying largely on oil.
Uduaghan and Anyim spoke at the opening session of the Ninth All Nigerian Editors Conference in Asaba, Delta State, warning that if concrete steps are not taken in the next five years to steer the country’s economy away from dependence on oil, the country may not survive.
Uduaghan, who has been championing the “Delta Beyond Oil” initiative in the last six years, said he was the happiest Nigerian at the venue of the opening ceremony with the decision of Nigerian editors to expand the scope of his vision to the national level.
He said the reality of the situation is that things are no longer the same with Nigeria now compared to when oil was first discovered.
He said with oil being discovered in several parts of the world, including Africa, Nigeria needed to return to the past when its economy depended largely on non-oil exports.
He said at independence, non-oil exports accounted for 80 per cent of exports between 1960 and 1970.
By 1970, oil export became 17 per cent, he said, adding that by 1978, oil export accounted for over 90 per cent of the country’s trade.
He said with the country spending billions of dollars importing goods, youth unemployment rose sharply.
Uduaghan also said sharp practices by oil producing companies in the country is another reason Nigeria must begin to look beyond oil for survival.
Nigeria, according to him, als loses about $7 billion to vandalisation annually.
The country lost about $11 illionb between 2009 and 2011 to oil theft.
He said such indices as these led him to envision a Delta State beyond oil.
He said though diversification was not easy, it is achievable.
He said with the state boasting of two airports, sea ports, good roads and other infrastructure, economic growth is possible in Delta State.
He said the state has also invested in power generation in order to ensure the people feel the impact of governance and by that encourage diversification from dependence on oil.
Uduaghan, who listed several sectors in which his government has put in place infrastructure to aid the diversification of the state’s economy, said efforts were also been made to revive moribund industries.
He said the “Ultimate success of Delta beyond oil can only be achieved if its economy is export linked.”
He urged the Federal Government to conclude the dredging of the sea port in the state and also pleaded with the editors to stand as the bridge between the government and Nigerians in deepening the understanding about why the country must diversify from reliance on oil.
Anyim said the theme of the conference was a projection of the reality before Nigerians.
He said the country was transiting from reliance on oil to non reliance on oil.
He said with the discovery of oil in several African countries and parts of Europe and the United States, it has become obvious that the law of demand and supply will take its course and ultimately lead to a fall in the price of oil.
He said the pronouncement by President Barack Obama of the United States of America that his country would no longer look in the direction of Africa for its energy needs has further driven home the point that Nigeria must quickly diversify its economy to survive.
Eminent businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who was represented by Engineer Joseph Makoju, said Nigeria must add value to its crude in the coming years in order to survive.
Dangote, who was the Guest Speaker, also canvassed the need to look at local consumption of petroleum products and develop a market for it.
He said the time to use petroleum resources to drive industrialisation deliberately is now.
He identified the biggest challenge to industrialisation as human capital, calling for capacity development by the government.
Dangote said his company was in the process of demonstrating commitment to the diversification process by investing about $9 billion in a refinery in Olokola Free Trade Zone.
He said the refinery would be the second largest in the world.
The President, Nigerian Guild of Editors, Femi Adesina, also said Nigeria needed to envision and evolve a nation beyond oil or it could “perish”.
In his address of welcome at the conference, Adesina said: “Nigeria must now diversify, or die.
“For well over four decades, we have run a mono-product economy.
“Petroleum has been our mainstay and we have allowed the easy money from oil to strangulate other cash cows like agriculture, solid minerals, tourism and many others.
“But as they say, ‘everyday is not Christmas, and the Egungun (masquerade) festival must end one day’.
“The honeymoon is about ending.”
Adesina also told the conference that “oil is fast becoming a vanishing source of easy revenue.
“Nigeria once had a pride of being one of the largest producers of petroleum on the continent, but not anymore.
“Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroun, Chad and some others have also found oil.
“And much more contentious is the fact that America, our largest customer, has discovered shale oil and so may not need to patronise us again.
“I tell you doomsday is by the corner, except we become proactive and stave off the evil.”
He argued that it was inconceivable that a country, which could no longer fund its imports, remained a consumer nation.
He queried: “Can you conceive the chilling prospect of a country no longer able to pay wages and salaries to its army of civil and public servants?”
He explained that the conference was designed to primarily address the way out of the situation the country had found itself.
Labaran Maku, the Minister of Information and Culture, in his own contribution said the Federal Government has no plan to gag the press.
Maku said that the media was operating in an atmosphere of freedom and vigorous debate.
He said the media had remained the freest in Africa and added that even in the military era, it operated with a considerable degree of freedom.
“Nigeria has remained the leader in terms of press freedom in Africa and gagging of the press in this country is not practicable.”
He expressed worries over some unethical practices among some journalists as well as poor quality of reports and urged the Guild to do all it could to reverse the trend.
“We must worry about the quality of our reports and we need strong ethics for the profession to survive,” he said.
