The President of the Nigerian Economic Society (NES), Prof Adeola Adenikinju, has advised the Federal Government to find a way of increasing its oil production capacity as part of measures to solve the current economic challenges facing the nation.
A Professor of Petroleum Economics, Adenikinju said the Gross Domestic Product ratio of oil in recent times has been contributing negatively to the economic growth rate of Nigeria.
Speaking at a seminar organised by students of the Economics Department, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, on Saturday, Adenikinju noted that the revival of the oil sector would have a positive effect on other sectors of the economy.
He said, “Now in recent times, because of subsidy and because our production went down, NNPC has not been remitting money into that Federation Account. Our reserves have gone down and that is part of the problem we have with the value of naira today because we don’t have enough foreign exchange to back the naira.
“We need to get oil back and part of what they need to do is to increase production. We used to produce over two million barrels per day but at some point, we are doing less than a million barrels because of the activities of vandals and oil theft.
“We need to get oil to contribute to foreign exchange again the way it was before. Because we are not producing enough oil, it is also affecting our gas production”.
