Oboro G. O

Major arguments within export diversification parlance has been that, if developing countries do not put in place strategic measures to mitigate the current persistent depreciation in the price of  crude-oil in the global oil market, they will experience untold economic hardship in the near future. Based on this, the paper empirically examined the impact of export diversification philosophy on sustainable economic growth in Nigeria from 1984 to 2018. The study adopted the Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) model to ascertain the short and long-run impact of export diversification as well as other determining factors which affect the growth of the Nigerian economy. The regression results revealed that, the extent of Trade Openness had indirect (negative) impact on the present and past values of GDP Per Capita. Conversely, IMF Export Diversification Index, Foreign investment inflows (% of GDP inflows), and Real Exchange Rate all had direct (positive) impact on the present and past values GDP Per Capita in Nigeria. Notably, only IMF Export Diversification and extent of Trade Openness passed the test of statistical significance on the short run. The study recommended that; the Nigerian government should intensify her export diversification philosophy by expanding her product reach. They may as well engage in export subsidization as well as create a more free trade business environment. However, this must be done with caution due to the fact that increased trade openness may make an economy to be more susceptible to global shock.