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Article Title:
Revenue Beyond Oil Reliance: Can Nigeria Leverage Non-Oil Tax Revenue For Inclusive And Pro-Poor Growth?
by Joel E. Owuru and Olabode E. Olabisi (Ph.D)

Abstract:
Nigeria is often dubbed as the giant of Africa with current estimated population of over 200 million. However, there are various apprehensions emerging from different quarters on why the nature of economic growth in Nigeria is not pro-poor. Since the economy cannot grow beyond the extent of its revenue generation, this study queries the revenue structure of Nigeria to assess the empiricalpossibility for Nigeria to leverage non-oil tax revenue for inclusive and pro-poor growth. This is to reduce the mono-economic practice of the Nigerian government in relying so much on taxes from the oil sector as a major source of the country?s revenue. This is done through an analysis of quarterly data on oil tax revenue and non-oil tax revenue spanning 2011-2016. The study adopts the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) estimation strategy in order to make inferences. The results of our analyses show that non-oil tax revenue has a positive contribution to inclusive growth in Nigeria than oil revenue. Based on this empirical evidence, non-oil tax revenue has the potential of aiding sustainable inclusive growth in Nigeria; hence the economy of Nigeria should be diversified intensively to increasingly harness the potential opportunities of the real sectors where non-oil tax revenue is generated in order to attain sustainable inclusive and pro-poor growth.

Keywords: Oil Tax Revenue, Non-Oil Tax Revenue, inclusive (pro-poor) growth, and FMOLS

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