Nigeria faces a very bleak future without her oil revenue that comes in on the daily basis into the federal government coffers. About 90% of the Nigeria's foreign exchange earning is from this oil. The nation's entire financial life, security and her whole future are all solidly and primarily built on oil since the 1960s when oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria in the Niger Delta region.
For the last 45 years, Nigeria has made more than $600 billion from the oil sales only as revenue. More than $300-$400 billion of this oil revenue are/were reported to have been siphoned overseas by the past and the present Nigeria's leaders and her top government officials. Today in 2013 in Nigeria, there is nothing physically present on the ground in Nigeria to truly justify these enormous oil wealth and revenue in all reality, truth and honesty.
Today, about 80% of all Nigerians are living in abject poverty and surviving on $1-$2 a day living budget or expenses. The unemployment rate has reached over 23% amongst the youths and leaving behind millions of young college-educated Nigerians without any possibility or hope for any future employment opportunities or any hope for a better future.
Furthermore, tens of millions of ordinary Nigerian workers in both the private and the government sectors of the Nigeria's workforce earn poverty wages that will never allow these workers to practically meet all their basic human needs in this life. Nigeria's present national infrastructures, education systems, health care facilities and her social services are all very old, over stressed, outdated, inadequate and collapsing.
The national population of Nigeria stands at around 160 million citizens and residents in 2012. This rapid population growth is expected to hit about 400 million persons by the year 2050 when the global oil experts expected the Nigeria's present oil reserves that currently stand at 38 billion barrels to be completely depleted at the current rate of exploration that stands at 2.5 million barrels of oil a day or 1 billion barrels of oil a year.
The oil in Nigeria today has never benefited the ordinary Nigerians, but only the nation's top elites (serving and retired military generals, serving and retired security chiefs, politicians, public elected officials, their families and cronies, as well as the retired and the serving top government officials). This Nigeria's oil revenue for decades was both stolen or mismanaged by the successive and present leaders.
In conclusion:Can Nigeria survive her future without this oil revenue that comes in on daily basis and in the midst of her current uncontrollable population growth and explosion? Time is fast running out against Nigerian nation that has refused through her corrupt and mediocre leadership for the last 50 years to manage properly and to invest this oil wealth wisely for the betterment of all Nigerians and for the future of the Nigerians yet unborn. Are Nigeria's present leaders aware of these two unavoidable major events of the future as they are presently very busy stealing or mismanaging the leftovers from the oil revenue? Once beaten, twice shy. Time will surely tell.
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