Cassava can be Nigeria’s mega export earner

THE World Bank has said Nigeria as the largest producer of cassava, could develop its economy by exporting quality cassava and other commodities other than oil.

World Bank’s Country Director in Nigeria, Mr Omo Ruhl, said this at a forum in Abuja.

“You have the most cassava in the world but apparently it is not the best. The quality may not be there. So let us focus on how we increase the standard,” he said.
The Country Director said that one of the greatest problems with the Nigerian economy was its over reliance on oil, as well as the mono-revenue and export economy system.

“Nigeria is not a mono-product economy. It is a mono-revenue economy and a mono-export economy because in the other sectors, there are no exports, very low fiscal revenues. That is where your challenge is, but oil is only 17 per cent of your GDP, 83 per cent is everything else taken together,” Ruhl said.

He added that Nigeria stood to benefit a lot in developing its agriculture and the wholesale and retail services sectors, which, he said, were actually bigger than the oil sector.

“Oil is actually the fourth largest sector of the Nigerian economy.

The largest sector is agriculture, the second largest sector is wholesale and retail and services is the third largest