Kaka Jamila Nuhu^1,, Abdurrahman Isik¹, Nnanna P. Azu¹

Nigeria is well documented to be a major exporter of natural resources especially crude oil but its impact on economic growth have been underwhelming. What drives this research is that diversifying the economy is paramount to achieving sustainable economic growth, which Nigeria needs most. Thus, this paper assesses the impact of non-oil trade on Nigerian economic growth with an emphasis on export, import and aggregate trade. ARDL estimation technique was adopted for the analysis and result reveal that non-oil export is paramount to economic growth in the short-run while export, import and aggregate trade are revealed to have a significant positive influence in the long-run. This highlights the importance of non-oil sector trade (especially exports) on the economic growth of Nigeria. Policies are therefore encouraging to boost the non-oil sector export in Nigeria of which export promotion should be encouraged.

Nigeria, Non-oil Trade, ARDL, Economic growth