Recent media highlights suggest that there is a prospective decrease in Nigerias budgetary benchmark crude oil production. Precisely, the 1.8 million barrels per day proposed at the Joint OPEC and Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting, is 18.2 percent lower than the budgetary production benchmark of 2.2 million barrels per day. This followed OPECs recent review to include Nigeria in the ongoing production cut agreement amid concerns of global oil market oversupply, given the constant production increase from Nigeria over the last few months.

Infrastructural development is a key step in providing a competitive business environment for African economies. It provides the backbone for poverty reduction strategies and programmes designed to improve the livelihood of the poor. Africa is in dire need of infrastructural development. The absence of quality infrastructure in the continent holds back per capita economic growth by 2 percentage points each year and depresses firm productivity by as much as 40 percent (Escribano et al., 2008 and Kelly, 2012). Estimates suggest that around USD 90 billion is required to close Africas infrastructure gap annually until 2020 (AICD, 2010).

Balance of Trade (Export and Import): With export and, to lesser extent, import declining balance of trade fell deeply in 2015 and, to lesser extent, in 2016Q1.