Nigerian companies go online for survival

Whenever we get GDP reports from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), there are always two major categories: oil and non-oil. 

No doubt, this way of thinking of Nigeria’s economy originated as a result of the importance placed on the oil sector. 

However, for many years now, Nigeria’s growth has been driven not by oil, but by the ‘non-oil’ sector, which was 91% of the total output last year. 

Oil certainly still has its importance, especially for our exports. Stears Business even put out three oil-related stories in the last week. However, today we’re focusing on the real economy, and how they are dealing with the pandemic - no shade to my fellow oil-loving journalists. 

Non-oil has the heavy hitters, such as agriculture (26% of the GDP), wholesale & retail trade (16%), information and communications technology —ICT (13%), manufacturing (9%), and real estate (9%).

Recently, though, the major driver of