Worried about the current deplorable economic situation in Nigeria, particularly the shock arising from the dwindling price of oil in the global market, a former Commissioner for Finance, Economic Planning and Budget in Lagos State, Dr Ismail Adebayo Adewusi, Sunday said that the main panacea was diversification of the economy from oil dependence to agriculture.
The Eruwa-born economic expert, lawyer and governorship aspirant in the 2007 election in Oyo State, spoke with ‘New Telegraph’, noting that the mentality of exporting crude oil at the detriment of other economic ventures which had reduced the nation to a monolithic economy, was debilitating and needed immediate arrest.
The politician who felicitated with his former boss, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu on his 64th birthday and his immense contribution to the political development in the country, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to depart from the dependence policy of the past administrations in order to fix the wobbling economy once and for all.
His words: “The only way we can improve this economy is to quickly do what I call the diversification thing. Let us quickly address the issue of diversifying our economy away from where we are. We have consistently canvassed for a diversification of the economy away from oil, because as long as this external shock from the global oil price continues, we will be having crisis managing our economy, especially in fulfilling government obligations. It is about time that we tackled this issue of diversification of the economy in a very serious manner.”