Nigeria’s dwindling fortune in the agricultural sector has confined her to a net importer of agricultural produce with over $4.2billion expended annually on the importation of agricultural produce for local consumption.

The Group Managing Director of Oceanic Bank International Plc, Mr. John Aboh, made the disclosure in a lecture he delivered at the Private Sector Lectures Series of the Faculty of Management Sciences of the Benue State University in Makurdi. Aboh said it was unfortunate that as an emerging nation Nigerian had asserted its dominance in global agricultural market but inadvertently lost that position in the 1960s to less endowed nations.

He said: “Since the 1960s, Nigeria has lost its dominant position in export of key crops such as palm oil, ground nut and cocoa in which the country controlled 60, 30 and 15 per cent of global exports respectively in the 1960s. “By the 2000s, Nigeria’s global share of exports of these crops was five per cent or less; today, Nigeria is a net importer of agricultural produce with imports (including wheat, fish, rice, sugar and others) totalling USD4.2billion.”


He however noted that the Nigeria could still reclaim that enviable position through well laid out plans, premised on domestic financial institutions to drive the real sector growth of the economy. The managing director noted that emerging economies like China adopted the strategy and it worked advising that Nigerian banks should not be an exception if the country wished to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

He emphasised that with the reforms in the banking sector, Nigerian banks have been geared up to bolster the nation’s recovery efforts and also to ensure availability of financing and access to funds in order to better serve the agricultural sector. He said: “Maintaining a safe and sound banking sector is central to economic development, given the significant role that the financial system could play in facilitating growth and financing developmental projects, particularly essential infrastructure and agriculture.

“The banking reforms are aimed at strengthening the financial system to prepare it to play its proper role in the growth of the real sector of the economy. This will ultimately result in substantial benefits to entrepreneurs in the private sector who are prepared to observe the financial discipline inherent in accessing credit from banks. ”