Rejuvenating the Nigerian economy: the role of the non-oil sector

The non-oil sector in Nigeria is so disarticulated while it’s sectoral linkage to the economy are so weak. Oil and gas dominate national output while the other manufacturing and production sectors that drives export in the economy is decidedly so small in terms of share of gross output, contribution to economic growth, foreign exchange earnings, government revenues and most importantly, employment generation. Descriptive statistics were applied to time series data spanning a period from 1961 to 2010 after testing for stationary to describe the performances of this sector in terms of revenue and contribution to GDP growth. Correlation and regression analysis were applied to highlight the relationship between GDP and certain identified non-oil sector variables and to ascertain the significant effect of these variables on economic growth. Findings reveal the non-oil sector in Nigeria is so insignificant that it contributes insignificantly to Nigeria’s total federally collected revenue and economic growth.