The recession recorded in the third of this year has been described by the World Bank as the Nigeria's worst in 36 years.
Data obtained from the World Bank showed that the country’s GDP dropped by 10.92 per cent in 1983 and 1.2 per cent in 1984.
The Apex global financial institution attributed the recession to the collapse in crude oil prices in June, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic which “plunge the Nigerian economy into a severe recession, the worst since the 1980s”.
The Gross Domestic Product report for the third quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics NBS ,fell by 3.62 per cent in the three months up till September.
For the first time in more than three years, the Nigerian economy shrank in second quarter as the GDP fell by 6.10 per cent, compared with a growth of 1.87 per cent in the first quarter.
Economists consider two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP as the technical definition of a recession.
According to the NBC, “The performance of the economy in the third quarter of 2020 reflected residual effects of the restrictions to movement and economic activity implemented across the country in early second quarter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,”
NBC added that some of the economic activities recorded positive growth when businesses reopened, trading activities and international flight resumed,following the lifting of the restrictions by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 pandemic.
“A total of 18 economic activities recorded positive growth in the third quarter 2020, compared to 13 activities in second quarter of 2020,” it added.
The statistics office said aggregate GDP stood at N39.09tn in nominal terms and N17.82tn in real terms in the period under review.
It said the average daily oil production recorded in Q3 dropped to 1.67 million barrels per day from 2.04 million bpd in the same quarter of 2019 and 1.81 million bpd in Q2 2020.
The oil sector contributed 8.73 per cent to total real GDP in Q3, down from 9.77 per cent and 8.93 per cent respectively recorded in Q3 2019 and Q2 2020.
The contribution of the non-oil sector to the GDP, however, increased to 91.27 in Q3 from 90.23 per cent in Q3 2019 and 91.07 per cent in Q2 2020.
The NBS said in August that the economic decline in Q2 was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activities resulting from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
It said the contraction in Q2 brought to an end the three-year trend of low but positive real growth rates recorded since the 2016/17 recession.
The country has seen its debt, inflation and unemployment levels rise this year – a development many experts have described as worrisome.
Total public debt, constituting both the federal and state governments’ external and domestic debt, in the first half of 2020 stood at N31.01tn or 22.3 per cent of GDP, a sizeable increase of 20.6 per cent over its level at the end of June 2019, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The CBN, in its half-year 2020 economic report, said total public debt outstanding was driven by rising fiscal deficits and associated borrowings, induced by low revenue inflow in the face of relatively high expenditure.
It said the rising cost of debt service underscored “a precarious liquidity position that could impair the government’s fiscal space, as well as its growth objectives”.
Inflation rate in the country jumped to 14.23 per cent in October from 13.71 per cent in September, according to the NBS.
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