An economic expert, Ken Ife, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime to improve its commitment to the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of the economy to spur diversification.

Mr Ife said this on Saturday in Abuja at the 33rd Finance Correspondents, and Business Editors Seminar organised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He made the call in his paper ‘Unlocking opportunities in the non-oil sector’. The expert noted that despite huge intervention in the agricultural sector recently, output appeared to be inadequate.

“Public leadership of agricultural development programmes has resulted in the construction of 300 dams, huge strategic grain reserves, and other investments,” the economic expert stressed. “The high number of dams, together with the rains and rivers, give Nigeria four times surface water than South Africa.”

Mr Ife added, “But only a handful of the dams are used for power generation, irrigation for dry-season farming and aquaculture.”

He commended the CBN for its various interventions in agriculture and other non-oil sectors.

“As of February, N948 billion in loans has been given to 4.4 million farmers cultivating 5.2 million hectares, creating 12.5 million direct jobs,” Mr Ife further explained. “The government could not have been able to deliver this order of ‘targeting’ and private-private arrangement and depositors’ monies that need to be repaid.”

Speaking at the event, the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele said the quest for building a more sophisticated economy was the major component of monetary policy.

He said such an economy would be anchored on agriculture, MSMEs, industrial and manufacturing concerns. According to him, Nigeria has largely depended on the oil sector for revenue generation over the past four decades.

Mr Emefiele stated that the sustained decline in crude oil production had continued to negatively undermine the performance of the economy.

“Thus, there is the urgent need for a conscientious effort to diversify to other non-oil sectors. As I have often said, it is important that we work to create an economy that will enable us feed ourselves, create jobs for our teeming youths and improve the standard of living of our people,” said the CBN governor. “Our population is growing by over three per cent per annum over the past seven years, against a less than steady growth in output since 2019.”

He added that the economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had also made the idea of economic diversification imperative.

“There is no gainsaying that since 2019, the world has been facing severe shocks, propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war that have continued to threaten global growth and overall macroeconomic stability,” Mr Emefiele stressed. “As the world was gradually exiting the devastating negative shocks and impact of COVID-19 pandemic, the economic sanctions against Russia have further worsened the subsisting supply-chain disruptions across the globe.”

According to him, the accompanying trade dislocations aggravated supply shocks across regions and triggered unprecedented increases in commodities, energy and food prices.

(NAN)