Post oil era: Ideal strategy for radical shift

Nature has endowed every state and country with means of generating revenue for maintaining engines of growth and development. During the colonial period, the source of revenue was tax over agriculture, manufacturing and mining products. After the discovery of oil, Nigeria’s economic base becomes broaden and growth tendencies become glaring. Unfortunately, the vibrancy and maximum […]

Nature has endowed every state and country with means of generating revenue for maintaining engines of growth and development. During the colonial period, the source of revenue was tax over agriculture, manufacturing and mining products. After the discovery of oil, Nigeria’s economic base becomes broaden and growth tendencies become glaring. Unfortunately, the vibrancy and maximum usage of sources fundamental during the colonial period were neglected and our developmental tendencies defined solely on oil. Today, the economy looks gloomy as oil price slumps with a tendency that the slump will continue for sometimes.
The two scenarios suffice to show the need to diversify (or re-diversify) the economy at least to neglected areas (evolved areas) or even new ones (evolving areas) for the betterment of the country and the people. But how do we carry this task so that the non-oil sector provides the required support for the economy as did oil in the past. Also, how do we evaluate growth tendencies and expectations in line with this economic objective.
The above questions require a mathematical framing that identifies optimal strategies for achieving the non-oil shift. The identification of the right strategy is the most fundamental aspect in our quest to achieve the leap from oil to the non-oil economy as proposed by the current administration. Similarly, for maximum benefits, there is need to study similar shifts to define our case better. For the later, the country may take a look at the giant economy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that initially dependent on oil for growth and development. Upon predicting that oil will be exhausted in the future, UAE harnesses her tourism tendencies and developed the sector. Today, tourism is a major source of revenue to the UAE.
Nigeria can conveniently borrow from the UAE migration tradition. In fact, the country can do even better going by the vast natural endowment tendencies that can provide inward models for such optimization problems. Take for instance our agricultural tendency. It is well known that Nigeria is blessed with vast land that is arable. In fact, research has shown that about 57% of our land can support crops while 43% is divided amongst forest, water bodies and others. The country is also a place for teeming unemployed youth (80% approx.). Thus, if these two tendencies are mixed optimally and harnessed properly, the combination would lead to a productive and profitable agricultural sector. 
Another tendency where tentative operators if defined properly could yield positive gains to the country’s economy is the solid mineral tendency. This sector has the tendency to contribute meaningfully to the economy if harness to the fullest. There are abundant reserves of solid minerals all over the country to which proper harnessing is operationally poor to date. Not only that, the necessary equations for optimizing the performance of the solid mineral tendency are lacking. If the sector is studied under good optimization strategy that takes account of constraint parameterization procedures for every sub-tendency, there is no doubt that this action will boast the performance of the economy.
In the quest to expand our revenue base for better, Manufacturing is a major driver in this direction. Countries such as the USA and Japan are industrialized basically due to their ability to manufacture goods and services. Suppose we are able to maximize our agricultural tendency such that we can supply the bulk of raw materials to the manufacturing sector from within, then our revenue base will not just increase proportionally but sub-exponentially.
Just like the UAE, Nigeria has several beautiful natural places for effective tourism development. Places like Yankari game reserve in Bauchi state, Obudu Cattle ranch in Cross river state, Gashaka-Gumti Park in Taraba state and many more are as beautiful as the Serengeti Park or the Yosemite Park. We can beautify these natural places as well as build artificial ones to attract tourists just as UAE did in making their country a tourist destination.
Mustapha Lawal Malumfashi & Dr. Sulaiman Sani wrote this piece from Dept. of Maths & Computer Science Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University, Katsina.