Denis Opudo
Natural resources are the bedrock of the strong Nigerian economy. The country is one of the African few nations with the strongest economic base. The main source of Nigerian human capital is the natural resources. Some of the examples of the country’s natural resources are oil, fauna, and flora. The country is currently the largest oil producer in Africa.
It seats in the 11th position of the largest oil producer globally. Apart from oil, the country has rich fertile land, coal. They also have natural gas, iron core and limestone. Despite all this, the country is still not leaving to the expectations. Statistics released in 2016, shows that many people are leaving below the poverty line. Above 112 million locals were surviving bellows $1 daily.
The main problem comes where the government itself is unable to get the solution to the problem. It becomes harder to solve the problems within a span of short time. Three key areas must be attended to before solving the Nigerian problems.
Get the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) financing
The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector is important to the growth of any economy. Giving necessary help to the small-scale business is required for their progress. Financial support informs of starting capital, short-term credit facilities and expansion capital. Once those are meat will offer a good growing environment to the small businesses. Many Nigerian small business holders don’t access financial support easily. This is because they lack collateral like fixed properties or banks don’t give them a priority.
Many developed countries offer the small businesses finance, support, and education. This is done by organizations set aside by the government. All are at the expense of bringing up the small businesses. A good example is Australia’s SME financing market. It has gone beyond the government’s participation to help the small businesses.
Need for the improvement of infrastructure
Nigeria is still lagging behind in the infrastructure development. All the way from transport to the power sector, one cannot talk about anything positive about them. For economic development to be realized, there must be an improvement in infrastructure. There must be reliable and consistent electricity. That will help in the construction of an industrialized economy. It’s so costly to run production plants on private generators.
It becomes even harder to transport raw materials to factories. Finished goods tend to delay on reaching the consumers on time due to the poor transport sector.
A call to move away from oil production
Gas and oil sector sums up to 35% of the country’s GDP. Exporting petroleum amounts to 90% of the total export. That shows that the country over-relies on the crude oil as their main export product. The many participants overload the international crude oil market. The government needs to work out ways of stopping overreliance on crude oil. Nigeria was doing well in the agricultural sector before they identified crude oil. It’s the highest time the country should take a different direction on the economic growth.
