Diversification in Nigeria: The Way Forward

Background of the StudyBefore 1960, Agriculture was the mainstay and heartbeat of Nigerian's economy and it contributed immensely and positively in sustaining the economic growth and development.According to Akpan and Eboh (2018), "With the groundnut pyramid in the North, Palm oil and Kannel in the East and South and Cocoa in the South-West before the discovery of Petroleum in Nigeria, there were indications that the nation was heading towards becoming a great economic giant in Africa".Suberu et al (2015) added that prior to the political crisis of Nigeria between 1967-1970, agriculture's positive contribution to the economy was instrumental in sustaining economic growth and stability and its exports constituted the backbone of a favourable balance of trade.Agriculture steadily continues to create employment, generate major revenue to the government, spur economic growth and development until the advent of oil when it started to nosedive until date.The discovery of oil has made Nigeria to be solely dependent on oil as its major source of revenue in spite the benefits of agriculture and other sectors.The advancement of the oil sector has led to the country experiencing great economic growth, stability, development and employment.Recently, the oil sector has been having series of debilitating problems emanating from mismanagement, corruption, politics, bureaucracy, international oil shocks, dwindling and volatility of oil, wastages, etc. and these have resulted to serious economic danger to Nigerian economy.Suberu et al (2015) stated "Regrettably, the oil resources are being mismanaged and a substantial part of it has gone on rent seeking and red-tapism common in Nigerian bureaucracy while Ileonikhena(2015) on his view contributed that about few months ago, many state governments in Nigeria were unable to pay workers' salaries and meet recurrent expenditures due to a sharp fall in oil revenue.A situation where states borrowed to pay salaries was a worst-casescenario of how bad the economy can be.Udeze (2018) asserted that the current challenges of Nigerian economy arose from volatility of the mono-revenue foreign exchange which is oil.Otti (2016) viewed that because Nigeria relied on a single product for virtually all earnings, the drop in the international price of oil led to the quantum of foreign exchange available to the country while Oluwaobi and Oluwatomwa (2016) opined "Every sector is troubled.The fact is, Nigeria moves one step forward and reverse to five steps backwards.We have had political crises, debt serving issues and turbulence in the oil sector to deal with than the number of positives".Presently, with all the problems confronting the oil sector, Nigerian's economy is a dysfunctional and crisis ridden one.Consequently, there have been calls by scholars, economic and financial analysts, government stakeholders and opinion analysists to imperatively and expeditely diversify Nigerian's economy to other non-oil-based exports.Diversification implies movement into new fields and stimulation and expansion of existing traditional products.Madjd-Sadjadi, (2016) described it as economic complexity of which countries should not be dependent upon a small number of products for their economic livelihoods.Diversification presents the most competitive and strategic option for Nigeria in light of her