Nigeria, since the 70s has been a mono-cultural economy relying heavily on oil as its major income earner. The implication is that the dynamics of the economy is at the whims and caprices of the price of oil, which for the most part, has been volatile (Enoma and Mustafa, 2011). The major fallout of this fragile structure of the Nigerian economy is a situation where the economy has been growing without creating jobs and reducing poverty (Onodugo, 2013). The on-hand explanation to this economic paradox is that the oil sector that produces about 90% of export earnings are in the hands of less than one percent of the Nigerian population dominated by expatriates and members of the political class who control production and the proceeds respectively. Worse still, the sector is disconnected from other tiers and sectors of the economy and thus offers little or no linkage and multiplier effect to the economy as a whole.

The adverse consequences of over dependency on oil trade heightened the need and call to diversify Nigerian economy away from oil towards the direction of non-oil export trade. Proponents of this increased proportion of non-oil export argue that the non-oil trade has great potentials to propel Nigerian economy to the desired growth and development. For instance, Onwualu (2012) maintains that the value chain approach to agriculture has the potentials to open up the economy and generate various activities which are capable of creating jobs and enhancing industrialization and thus makes the non-oil sub-sector to hold the aces for future Nigerian sustainable economic growth.

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