Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state does not agree with the claim by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that Nigeria is out of recession.
The NBS had on Tuesday released a data showing that Africa’s largest economy was out of recession. The data shows a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 0.55 percent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2017. But the Ekiti governor has faulted the data.
He said in a statement that Nigeria cannot be out of recession when, according to him, Nigerians are suffering and dying, with food and drug out of their reach.
"Claiming that Nigeria is out of economic recession without any corresponding effect on the living condition of the people is just like they said Boko Haram had been defeated and over 400 people were killed by the insurgents in the last five months,” Fayose said.
And following the announcement by the statistics body, media aide to President Muhamamdu Buhari, Femi Adesina, said Nigeria’s exit from recession indicated that Buhari’s government was working for the progress of Nigerians.
But Fayose, in response to that, wondered why the price of foodstuffs like rice had not reduced to N7,000 per bag that it was when Buhari took over power.
He said,“Is the dollar now N197 to $1? Is petrol now back to N87 per litre that Buhari met in May 2015? Are Nigerians now feeding comfortably, even if it is once in a day?
“Most importantly, are states now getting enough allocation from the Federation Account to be able to meet their obligations, especially payment of salaries?”
He insisted that Buhari’s government plunged the country into recession due to what he called bad economic policies implemented by the government.
"It must be stated that Nigeria’s foreign reserves, which stood at $28.6bn by May 2015 when President Buhari took over power, declined steadily to $23.89bn by the last quarter of 2016. It was in 2016 that Nigeria slipped into recession owing to the bad economic policies and repressive actions of President Buhari.”