Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice-President of Nigeria has emphasized that the excessive dependence on oil revenue is the major player in the collapse of the other contributing sectors of the economy like agriculture.

CEOAFRICA new desk gathered this from the statement of the former vice-president during an International conference at the London School of Economics (LSE), held for Nigerians in Diaspora.

Atiku while delivering a policy paper entitled “Moving Nigeria Beyond Oil” said the country’s over-dependence on oil had produced many unforeseen consequences, including what he called “wealth without labour “ as well as generation of youth aspiring to be employed rather than thinking of how to create jobs for themselves.

he did not hesitate to state however that it is a regretful situation that the same oil industry had contributed little in terms of direct employment relative to its contribution to the government revenues.

According to the former vice-president, the over-reliance on oil revenues had virtually destroyed the initiatives by the state governments to double efforts towards improving their internally generated revenue sources.

He observed that corruption is the worst consequences of Nigeria’s over-dependence on oil, compounded by the lack of transparency and accountability in the oil industry, which was exposed by the various investigative reports.

He  suggested that Nigeria can do the same to diversify their economy if other oil producers such as Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Japan, the United States of America (USA) and Canada could reduce their dependence on oil.

He added that there is no reason why Nigeria cannot produce technology that assists oil exploration and exploitation, stressing that Nigeria can do well in refining its own petroleum to meet domestic demand and for exports.

Atiku however recommended that the government should provide the incentive for massive private sector investments in solid minerals exploration, adding that it an area in which the government has identified 34 minerals in commercial quantities.