The economy of Nigeria contracted by 6.1% between Q2 2019 and Q2 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria. This is a heavy contraction – the largest in the last ten years. This breaks about 13 quarters of slow-po growth in the GDP.
Nigeria does not have an economy; we only have an oilnomy since anytime oil men sneeze in Texas, the fate of millions of people shift. Add the 27.1% unemployment rate in the nation, you see a huge paralysis!
Nigeria’s economy contracted by 6.10 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.
Details of the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product Report for Q2 2020 showed that the decline was due to a contraction in domestic and international economic activity during the quarter (April to June 2020).
It is the biggest contraction of the nation’s economy in at least a decade.
[…]
“The decline was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activity during the quarter, which resulted from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic,” the NBS said on Monday.
Yes, if the economy only contracted by 6.1%, it means our prayers are working. Other economies saw more dislocations. Largely, I do think we do not know where we are as everything is guesswork. YouTube is a big “economy” for Nollywood now; I am not sure anyone is picking that up as the revenue is possibly hitting American banks. When an economy is too informal and porous, you have a domino effect.
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We still don’t know how to measure the economy yet, just like our weather forecasting here; not sure who can predict when it will rain in my village.
We have a decoupled and disparate economic system, and yet keep pretending as though we are close to capturing all the economic activities that go on in the land. This is a country where some mega millionaires are classed as ‘rural poor’, largely because they don’t have bank accounts. Many people that sell sand and stones, who measures their net worth?
Even the ones we class as unemployed, some are making more money than the ones we classed as employed, but we like to cling to lazy man’s data, even when it’s indefensible.
No matter how bad or good we report the economic data, the average citizen doesn’t really notice any difference in his/her living standard, because he/she was never captured in those economic acrobatics and gymnastics in the first place.
If we pay for petrol subsidies or stop paying, do ordinary citizens notice any difference in government welfare towards them? It still feels like nothing changes.
We have a lot of work to do for the Nigerian Project, including writing a credible Constitution, but it’s obvious that we love copying what we don’t understand.
Francis Oguaju, thank you.