overnight or as a result of a single
policy or single actor. commit to real development of non-oil
sectors.
As revenues from oil increased, state
governments and entrepreneurs
across the country progressively
abandoned their own resources to
chase after petrol dollars from Nigeria‘s
southern region. The economic
structure in Nigeria today has
developed as a direct result of the
chase for petrol dollars. The need to
exert more control over these petrol
dollars (at the federal level) ensures
that efforts to improve non-oil sectors
in Nigeria are half-hearted at best. A
situation exists in Nigeria today where
state and local governments (aside
Lagos state) rely heavily on funding
from the federal government (in the
name of Federal allocation) to fund
their activities. This is no way to grow the economy of
a nation, let alone a nation the size of
Nigeria with its overwhelming youth
population.
What it means is that the amount of
money available to the government (at
all levels) is largely dependent on the
price of crude oil. Taking away the
corruption factor for which Nigeria is
highly ranked, there is very little to The other major problem which allows
this situation to persist is that other
sectors which are supposed to hold
government to account and provide
direction to government policy makers
are failing in their respective roles.
It is definitely no way to
address Nigeria‘s non-oil
exports deficits.
To compound the issue, government
policies are largely driven by strong
individuals with big-sounding titles
rather than strong institutions. So,
meager resources are expended on
projects and initiatives which the
government of the day deems
necessary. The result is a lack of
continuity in government initiatives and
projects.