Africa’s biggest oil producer and leading economy has been struggling with the slump in global crude prices for nearly two years, which has slashed the majority of government revenues.
According to
vanguard News: The country’s junior oil minister last Thursday said some
oil-producing countries, including Russia, would meet in Moscow on March 20 to
discuss a way out of the slump.
Asked if the
world’s biggest supplier Saudi Arabia and policies of the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries had hit smaller producers, Buhari told Al-Jazeera
English OPEC had to “act together to save the situation”.
Countries,
including Nigeria, “have to live by” market forces, he said, ruling out a
Nigerian withdrawal from the body.
But he added: “OPEC
as an organisation has to be mindful of economic conditions in each member
country because that will influence that country’s ability to go along with
OPEC decisions.
“Nigeria, we were
unable to diversify our economy, hence we are much more disadvantaged by the
lower oil prices and OPEC may try to help us out but really, it’s basically our
own fault.”
Buhari, who took
office in May last year, has made reducing Nigeria’s reliance on crude revenues
a key plank of his economic policy alongside ending decades of corruption and
impunity.
But those efforts
have been hamstrung as cash-flow problems caused by the global oil shock as
well as previous administrations’ failure to save crude revenue when prices
were high. Buhari again said he would not devalue the naira currency or lift
strict foreign exchange controls that critics say have strangled investment and
growth in the import-dependent country.
“Nigeria can only
afford to live within its means
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