An economic expert, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, has said the indicators that Nigeria had again slipped into recession manifested in the last four quarters, but that the Federal Government kept mum.
Prof. Tella has, therefore, advised the Federal Government that certain measures should be taken to avoid depression.
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The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Saturday that Nigeria’s economy had slipped into recession for the second time in four years as the price of oil plunged amid the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 3.62 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2020.
With the current situation, Prof. Tella said what was left for the country “is to avoid slipping into depression. Government has been running away from saying we are in recession. But now it is very clear. The fall in GDP has been there more than three times. Unemployment rate has always been rising.”
“If you check the records you will see that the GDP has been falling, the inflation rate has been rising in the last four or five quarters. So, those are indicators of recession…we’re just pretending as if we’re not there (in recession).”
He regretted that the common man would continue to suffer while the recession lasted and therefore urged the government to set up a special intervention fund for the manufacturing sector so as to improve on production and employment generation.
