By Olu Fasan
The latest foreign trade data
show that Nigeria recorded a trade balance of N6.52 trillion in the first
quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
Expectedly, President Bola Tinubu seized on the figure as evidence that his economic
reform is working. Given that the positive trade balance significantly reversed
the negative balance of minus N1.4 trillion recorded in the fourth quarter of
last year, one should cut Tinubu a slack. After all, a trade surplus, any trade
surplus, is better than a trade deficit!
However, dig deeper, there’s
little to gloat about: for nothing has changed in the structure of Nigeria’s
export trade. Crude oil exports, at N15.5 trillion, account for 80.8 per cent
of the total exports. If you add other petroleum oil products, including
natural gas, at N1.9 trillion or 9.92 per cent, oil and gas represent 91 per
cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Thus, non-oil exports, at N1.8 trillion,
account for a minuscule nine per cent of Nigeria’s total exports. Surely, then,
Tinubu’s economic reform has done nothing to change the structure of Nigeria’s
export trade, which remains almost totally dominated by crude oil and natural
gas.