What happens when your country depends on a single product?

From Vanguard:

Nigeria’s excess crude account has dropped from $20 billion (N3.004 trillion) at the beginning of the year to $11.2 billion (N1.646trn) in June. This implies that in the last six months, the various tiers of government in the federation have shared a total of $9bn (N1.323tr) from that account.

This use of the fund was to beef up revenue allocation to the three tiers of government following the dwindling revenue accruing to the federation account as a result of the global economic recession that has resulted in the fall of prices of crude oil- the major revenue source of the country.

And you would have probably been hearing stuffs like this (this time around, it is from the Nigerian Minister of State for Finance, Mr Remi Babalola):

“We are addressing the issue of funding through revenue diversification. Our plan is to diversify from oil and gas based economy to other untapped areas such as agriculture and natural resources. Agriculture, however, remains very high on our list as it currently employs 68 per cent of labour force, contributes 40 per cent of GDP and provides 88 per cent of non-oil earnings.”