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This paper is driven by the vast influence oil money have on the current account balance of major oil producing countries in Africa and the role policy measures could play to soften these effects. Dwelling on the nonlinear techniques, two types of Threshold Regression were used to estimate data on 8 African countries from 1995-2019. The results show evidence of nonlinear impacts of oil revenue on the current account balances of the 8 countries. The nature of the impact relies significantly on the levels of the threshold variable. Precisely, the estimated threshold benchmark for financial development was 33.34; below this threshold the sensitivity of current account balance to crude-oil shocks is higher and the probability of policy measures to mitigate the effects is low and, beyond the threshold the sensitivity of current account balance to crude-oil shocks is low and the probability of policy measure to mitigate the effects is higher. The finding suggested among others that crude-oil shocks is not the primary problem of the current account imbalance of oil-exporting countries rather the nature of the domestic economic policy environment.

This paper examines the Nigerian economy and the tendency for its growth in the face of several socio-political challenges facing the country, which have hampered the rate of economic development in spite of the tremendous human and material resources inherent. The paper identifies the socio-political challenges to include corruption, poverty, unemployment, insecurity, politics and governance, among others. The central argument of the paper is that steady economic growth can be achieved and financial crisis mitigated in Nigeria, if the effects of socio-political challenges, which are the key factors that have contributed to the high poverty, unemployment and economic instability in the country, are minimised. To ensure economic growth and move the country forward politically and economically, government must be more accountable in managing the nation’s resources in order to avoid wastage, poverty and unemployment. Close attention should be given to those socio-political challenges in the formulation of policies that aimed at maintaining economic growth at a level commensurate with the country’s growth rate. This study put forward that government must be proactive in all issues relating to the socio-political challenges to prevent resource mismanagement, poverty, unemployment, insecurity and slow economic growth in future.