Nigeria has lost about N3.6tn over the past five decades in non-oil export opportunities in crops such as cocoa, oil palm, cotton and groundnut alone.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Export-Import Bank, Abubakar Bello, disclosed this while delivering a keynote address at a finance conference in Lagos.
According to Bello, Nigeria’s non-oil export only accounts for just 13.17 per cent of Nigeria’s exports by value, from up to 97 per cent at independence.
Mr. Bello noted that Nigeria’s non-oil sector had been characterised by “systemic decline in the contribution of total exports to Gross Domestic Product, dropping from 31.44 per cent in 2012 to 18.44 per cent and 10.63 per cent in 2014 and 2015.
