Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode has said the fall in oil prices was a blessing in disguise, stressing that the fall had offered the country the opportunity to attain real growth.
Speaking at the 3rd Annual London School of Economics Africa Summit with the theme: “Nigeria – Rising Above Crude Realities,” Ambode said overdependency on oil has created a distortion in the country’s economic structure.
He said the country stand a lot to benefit positively from the downturn in oil price despite the reduction in Nigeria’s growth rate, export earnings, foreign direct investment, and government revenues.
He said, “The high price of oil created a distorted economic structure, where it was more valuable to capture value from the oil stream than create value. The returns to oil went to a few, with a tiny trickle down system to keep the social peace, but the reality is we squandered the oil wealth and arrived to 2015 with poor infrastructure, a poor education system, and poor level of social development.
“The drop in oil prices has revealed that the one dimensional model of our political economy has outlived its shelf life. We are forced by the slump to change the architecture of our political economy. That is the challenge before us.”
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