Nigerian Economy Is Out Of Recession, Statistician General Insists

Statistician General, Yemi Kale

By CLEMENT NWOJI, Abuja

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has insisted that the Nigerian economy was out of recession, contrary to earlier reports which quoted the Statistician General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, as saying that the country was still groaning under recession.

Kale was quoted to have said that the economy was still in recession in an interview on Arise Television.

But in a statement by the Head, Public Affairs & International Relations Unit, Sunday Ichedi, NBS said: “We want to emphasize and state categorically that the economy is out of recession and at no time did NBS or its CEO State otherwise as has been reported.”

Citing statistics, he recalled that NBS that announced the end of recession in Q2 2017 following the announcement of positive growth in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following five quarters of Economic growth as measured by GDP and has remained positive ever since Q2 2017, 1.17percent; in Q3 2017, 2.11 percent; in Q4 2017, 1.95 percent and in QI 2018.

He said the NBS had stated several times that the stages after an economic recession is an economic recovery where the economy moves gradually following the end of a recession towards sustainable strong growth.

“This is the stage of recovery that we are now and was alluded to by the Statistician General during his interview. That the economy is in the second stage heading towards sustainable growth, which is the last stage”, he said.

Ichedi cautioned that these stages of recovery should not make people to wrongly interpret the economy as still being in recession.