Nigeria's history, especially since independence in 1960, has been characterised by years of missed opportunities and the attendant shock on the economy.
Analysts said Nigerians are currently paying the price of the failure of successive administrations to take advantage of the immense opportunities that presented themselves at the dawn of Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960.
Unfortunately, despite the contributions of agricultural produce like cocoa, groundnut, and palm oil to Nigeria's economy and their potential to do better through higher production, value chain development, local consumption, and export, this subsector of agriculture has remained neglected and underutilised.
Over 50 per cent of all exports in the 1970s and over 60 per cent in 1980 were made up of cocoa. But as time went on, its share steadily decreased, falling from 49 per cent in 1989 to 22 per cent in 1998. In 2010, cocoa production accounted for only 0.3 per cent of agricultural GDP. Unfortunately, palm oil, another revenue earner at independence was not spared of the fate that befell cocoa and groundnut trade as the obsession with crude oil dampened enthusiasm for palm oil production, especially after independence. The same fate befell other agricultural produce, especially in the 1980s when rural-urban migration shook the foundation of Nigeria's agriculture.
Nigeria's once-thriving palm oil industry is often cited as one of the most miserably failed economic opportunities in the country. As palm oil found wider use in food processing and industry, global demand for the commodity surged. By 1982, worldwide palm oil exports had grown to a staggering 2,400,000 million tonnes per annum.
The Nigerian economy for decades has been largely dependent on oil as its main source of revenue, despite several policies, measures and efforts that were put in place to rectify the situation by diversifying into other sources of income.
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