The Nigerian economy is a mix of private and public ownership and falls in the middle-income grade. The country accounts for the largest population in West Africa and hence the largest economy contribution. Nigeria is a big natural gas and oil reserve making it export of natural reserve a large part of the economic flow. Naturally, petroleum has been the largest industry and with price increases over the period, the growth of Nigeria has been substantial.
Two major factors raised the low-class income country into a middle-income grade. First, the privatization of various state-owned enterprises which comprise of communication (part of the ICT sector), transportation and power liberated the expenditure and investment flow globally into Nigeria and secondly, the economic benefit from the petroleum industry which has helped increase investment in other sectors like manufacturing, government, technology and entertainment.
To see the economy is to understand the effect of pandemic on the country. Since Nigeria’s flow of income is deeply rooted in petroleum trade, one of the worst hit markets in pandemic, the country has taken a historical blow in over 10 years. The global demand for oil trade has been cut down by various countries and thus with no export out of Nigerian oil reserves, the GDP has been wounded.
Nigeria is now dependent on its commodity and services side of the industry to generate revenue and compensate for some of the 6.1% decline in GDP. The World Bank states this as the worst recession of Nigeria in four decades (worse than the recent 2016 recession) and calls for drastic measures to realign with its pre-pandemic growth stats.
To climb out of this recession, Nigeria needs to distribute its economic dependence between multiple industries and one such industry that has taken up people’s attention is the ICT. According to new plans to help Nigeria's economy bounce back, three major developments will be adopted in the country. Introduction of 5G, laying of fibre optic lines and incorporation of virtualmobilenetwork operations are the main attractions and are predicted to reposition ICT sector’s value in the upcoming GDP reports. These major developments will make cloud computing an attractive option for all businesses across the country and strengthen its market value.
Evidently, the Nigerian economy is suffering with one recession after another but with redistributed attention towards multiple industries will help the country create multiple channels of monetary flow in the non-oil department which will pull the growth rate up.