The Global Trade Forum, a
non-governmental organisation (NGO) has said that economic policies of the 1960s will assist the Federal Government in diversifying the economy.
The NGO Lead Director, Dr Gregory Achimugu, gave the advice in Abuja recently.
In a communiqué made available to our correspondent in Port Harcourt, Achimugu recalled that Nigeria as an emerging economy was doing well in the early post-independence years because it was not practicing a mono-economy that focused on exploring one product for economic gains.
He said now that the Nigerian economy depended heavily on crude oil, the fall in price at the international market had taken a serious toll on the economy.
“The most logical thing for the country to do is to diversify. There are various ways of doing this. “You can do this through agriculture. In the 60s, the North was known for groundnuts, the East was known for palm oil and cashew while the West was known for cocoa”.
He explained that the country then with these products was able to build the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria amongst other higher institutions of learning in the country.
Achimugu also called for drastic methods to address revenue decline at the moment.
He said that to boost revenue in the short term, Nigeria should focus more on agriculture, especially growing crops with short gestation period, high yield with export value.
“We can also go into mining because we already have mining facilities scattered all over the country, let us make use of them”, he advised.
The NGO Director explained further that the country could resurrect the tourist centres as thousand and one tourist centres that are not adequately developed abound in the country.
“Artifacts like where Murtala Mohammed was shot can attract tourists if it is well displayed, even the weapons and cars used during the Biafra war”, he said.
According to him, the Lake Chad Basin can also be opened for tourism.