Managing Nigeria’s Natural Resources for Sustainable Development

Abstract: Nigeria is a blessed nation, endowed with substantial quantities of natural resources, the effective utilization of which can be a viable path to sustainable development. Sustainable development is the desired result if renewable resources are managed in a manner that benefits all concerned without compromising the availability of those resources for future generations, and in a manner that does not threaten the continued existence of other species. Consequently sustainable development propagates that exploitation of natural resources must be done in a responsible manner. We often wonder how natural resource depletion affects the environment, how do we process and exploit natural resources without leaving a damaging effect on generations to come? Summarily, that a relationship exists between natural resources and development is not in doubt, what remains yet unknown in our case is the extent to which growth and subsequently development is affected by the presence/ size of the said resources. This paper casts a critical look on the management of natural resources and how it impacts on Nigeria’s sustainable development. We observe that Nigeria’s over dependence on the oil sector has led to the non exploitation of other resources and we recommend that there is an urgent need to diversify Nigeria’s economic base in a strategic manner