Nigeria has recently taken over South Africa’s place as being the largest economy in Africa. Not surprisingly, the country with the population of 173.6 million (World Bank, 2014) had experienced a GDP growth of 7% annually over the past decade. However, despite the economy’s rapid growth, the country still faces major challenges that could hamper the country from further growth such as, political instability, corruption, weak infrastructure, and population growth. In light of the aforementioned inputs, our team selected Nigeria to study the impact and implications of those challenges on its economy. Nigeria is a developing country that has attracted relatively few observations and research in response to the big developments and changes it has experienced over the past decade. Most recently in April 2014, the Nigerian government announced that the country’s 2013 GDP had been revised to 80.2 trillion naira (US$510B) up from 42.4 trillion naira, which is nearly an increase of 89% (J.O’S., 2014). How can a country’s GDP grow by 89% overnight?Is the growth rate representative? Nevertheless, studying a rapid developing economy such as Nigeria’s, enlightens our knowledge about the growth specifications of other developing economies that tend to behave differently opposed to developed mature economies. In Africa for example, Ghana, which has one of the highest GDP growth rates has numerous challenges on several aspects but is still growing rapidly. Why is that? Do these countries’ GDP growth rate reflect the exploitation of their extensive natural resources. And if so, we intend to understand the representation of Nigeria’s extensive natural resources, such as oil, in the economy’s GDP, exports, and government revenues. We intend to gauge whether Nigeria has a relatively diversified economy or is heavily dependent on its rich resources.
References.

1. J.O’S. (2014, April 7). How Nigeria’s economy grew by 89% overnight. The Economist.
2. The World Bank. (2014). Nigeria Data. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/country/nigeria.
3. Falola, T., Amutabi, M. & Gundona, S. (2013). Africa after fifty years : retrospections and reflections. Trenton: Africa World Press.
4. In Cervigni, R., In Rogers, J. A., In Henrion, M., & World Bank. (2013). Low-carbon development: Opportunities for