According to a popular maxim, it is difficult for a tree to make a forest. This is a truism that needs not to be doubted in anyway. For instance, if we have only one rich man who stands as sole ‘proprietor’ of wealth in a family and refuses to teach others how to fish, a time certainly will come when the burden of doing so will start weighing him down.
The same is real when a nation solely depends on a single economic product, without thinking of exploring other aspects, or neglects other visibly available sources that would otherwise have helped in enhancing her economic prosperity.
When I was growing up as a young man, Nigeria was a major producer of cocoa, rubber, groundnut and coal, among other economic resources, before crude oil came into limelight. Then, these resources sustained our economy, which was buoyant. Our currency then was valuable and life itself was awesome, at least, from mid 1970s till 1990s.
We once had the groundnut pyramids in the North, cocoa in the West and coal in the East. With these minerals and others, Nigeria’s economy was strong and viable. These made the nation a strong economy and earned her lots of respect in the comity of nations.
But as soon as oil exploration began, and there was oil boom, the groundnut production, coal mining, rubber production, and cocoa plantations started losing the attention hitherto given to them. As the oil money trickled in, many Nigerians began to live ostentatious and flamboyant lifestyles; people abandoned the farms and these resources suffered neglect as all attention shifted to oil. With the oil boom  came laziness and corruption as many, in their bid to surpass others in wealth and property ownership, started going the extra mile, looting funds meant for the nation’s development.
The embezzlement and siphoning of the nation’s treasury kept enlarging in scope, till it finally assumed the height where some heartless Nigerians began to ferry stolen monies to developed nations to the detriment of ordinary Nigerians who cannot boast of three square meals. As a result, the country was left under-developed.
With the concentration on oil alone and the accruing wealth from it being misappropriated, the economy crumbled fast, helped by the fall in oil price and the nation’s currency could no longer compete with other currencies of the world.
Now, it has become obvious that there is no way the country can come out of its current economic difficulties without the diversification of the economy. It is, therefore, incumbent on the managers of the country’s affairs to return to agriculture which was the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy before the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity.
Many Nigerians have indeed lent their support to a return to agriculture. For example, Professor Adolphus Joseph Sam Toby, a Port Harcourt-based financial scientist, said that Nigerians risk rapid descent to worst poverty situation if those in charge of the affairs of the nation fail to handle well the recession plaguing it.
According to him, the sure way out of the economic logjam currently bedeviling the nation and her populace is by going back to agriculture, adding that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “Operation Feed The Nation” agenda on agriculture, was geared towards making agriculture bounce back to relevance.
“We are lousy. When you don’t want to work, we don’t want to see farming as mainstay, and our life is entirely dependent on oil, whose price is rapidly with no sign that it will ever bounce back to normal, are we not fooling ourselves? As I speak to you now, many Nigerians cannot afford a square meal a day,” he said.
Sharing similar sentiments, a renowned educationist and Zonal Director of Ministry of Education, Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State, Dr (Mrs) Christiana Sibor said, it is absolutely imperative for Nigerian leaders to have the economy diversified to save it from its ailing state. She was of the view that the economic situation will certainly improve if other sectors like mining and agriculture are looked into.
“Oil in Nigeria, to me, has lost its value. May be it is in other oil producing countries that it still retains its value. I don’t know. But I tell you, as far as I am concerned, the issue of oil in Nigeria should be de-emphasized, while other areas should be vigorously pursued for effective results. This is a duty that we all must join forces with our leaders to do, so as to salvage this nation out of her present economic recession that had created rooms for hunger, disease and deaths”, she said.
I can not agree less with the above views. I hope our governments at all levels, will listen to this advice and do the needful.
Toby writes from Port Harcourt.

Bethel Sam Toby