Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
A principal lecturer at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Gimpa, Dr. Samuel Nii-Noi Ashong has said that the Ghanaian government is working hard to ensure that the country’s oil sector does not displace other relevant sectors of its economy‎.
Ashong made the remark at the weekend in Abuja in a keynote address at the quarterly lecture organised by the Economic Business Strategies (EBS) RED lecture with the theme: ‘Exporting, Exchange Rate and Economic Growth.’
The university don noted that following the oil boom, Nigeria abandoned other relevant sectors and depended on oil as the mainstay of her economy.
He said there should be a deliberate policy by African governments to improve the export sector, which include incentives ‎in order to make sure that natural resources catalyse ‎the rest of the economy‎.
According to him, “You need to have a deliberate policy about what products are needed in the other market for you to be able to meet their specifications‎. Are we producing the right goods which are in high demand in outside world; for example in Ghana, we produce cocoa, Nigeria produces oil, these are in high demand. What other goods have we identified that are in high demand abroad?
Ashong added: “When Nigerian became comfortable that it didn’t need anything apart from oil‎ to get revenue, it went to sleep. Sometimes these natural resources if you don’t manage them well can actually displace other vibrant sectors in the economy. So, you have to make conscious effort, that is what we are doing in Ghana, we want to make sure oil sector does not displace agricultural sector because if it does, it will be very difficult to claim back.”
Earlier, the Convener and Chairman, EBS, Magnus Kpakol‎ said that the reason why Nigeria has neglected other sectors of the economy for so long was because the country’s competencies have been minimised by the inflow of oil money, noting that the country got too comfortable and failed to spend more time and energy developing other areas.
He said: “We have been talking about diversifying the economy and for a long time we have not been able to do that. Now we are faced with a situation that has to be addressed. The price of crude‎ oil has declined and it is not very likely that is going to rise very sharply has we have seen before because there are alternatives. We have renewable energy; we have seen electric cars coming up all over the place… that means we are not going to get the same kind of demand as you got in the past.
“We are not competitive as we can be, we have to be able to produce goods and services at the rate that makes us very competitive and somehow we have not been able to do that,” Kpakol added.
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On his part, a senior lecturer in the Department of political Science and International Relations, University of Abuja, Dr. Mutiullah Olasupo observed that government has not been able to understand the way and manner the enabling environment for the export sector could be proactively created in the country.
He noted that the federal government needs to create enabling environment for entrepreneurs and manufacturers so that they would be able to succeed and export as many as possible.
Olasupo stressed that “the fact that Nigeria is mono-economy is not really helping our foreign exchange ‎rate. So, the best way to improve on our exchange rate is to ensure that we increase out export in non-oil tradeable goods.
“If we want to promote ourselves to international community, the best way to do it is to first promote ourselves within. This current disarticulate economy needs to be stopped. We have to stop the disarticulate economy in which we produce what we don’t consume and consume what we don’t produce. If we do that and coupled with friendly policy that is to come from government, we will have a very strong exchange rate and at the same time we will have strong and encouraging export.” he stressed.
