Influence of Economic Activities in Nigeria and the DRC: could bilateral cooperation be improved?
Posted by BYELONGO ELISEE ISHELOKE on 20 July 2022, 23:30 SAST
1. INTRODUCTION
Nigeria has huge geo-resources including gas and is the 10th largest oil reserves in the world (PWC., 2019: 19). It is the first economy of Africa (the most populated country in the continent), but this does not mean the people are out of poverty. The recent violent protests speak volume about the prevailing situation of economic inequality in that country. The petroleum industry makes an insignificant contribution to the economy of Nigeria (+- 10% of the GDP) based on comparisons with other nations. Compared to other petrol states or oil-driven economy such as
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Kuweit (50% of the GDP), Saudi Arabia (42% of the GDP), and UAE (70%) one can say that the impact of oil activities in Nigeria is insignificant (Omoregie, 2016; Uwakonye, Osho and Anucha, 2006; PWC., 2019). As far as Nigeria is concerned, the biggest hindrance to performance in the oil sector is insufficient or the lack of domestic petroleum refining capacity – it is similar to the case of former Zaire (Omoregie, 2016). In both Nigeria and the DRC, the difficulties are not of recent, although the situation is exacerbated by factors such as corruption, maladministration and conflicts (war/terrorism) – similar to the resource curse conundrum.
On the other hand, minerals in the DRC contribute up to 8% on the GDP (Tutalife and Jourdan, 2019) – all the same poorly. And the DRC is among the potentially richest countries in the world on the account of mineral deposits. However, it is also the country where the population live in extreme misery (Gregson, 2018) – below poverty line.