NIGERIA’S TROUBLED ECONOMY

After a session over the lingering minimum wage for workers, members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) met briefly with President Muhammadu Buhari last week and he told them the obvious: the country’s economy was in “bad shape.” The president urged the governors, according to the chairman of the forum and Governor of Zamfara State Abdulaliz Yari, to buckle up, tighten their belts and work on their decayed infrastructure.

The poor state of the economy is not
open to debate. The president was only emphasising the worries that have preoccupied many critical stakeholders for quite a while. 

The prevailing economic downturn has worsted the capacity of both the state and individuals so much so that basic necessities of life, including food and healthcare are becoming luxuries. 

Perhaps nothing describes the situation better than the revelation, earlier in the year, that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most number of citizens living in extreme poverty. 

Living in extreme poverty, by the parameters set by the World Bank, means living on less than $1.90 per day. 

Almost everywhere is grim. 

Almost everywhere is grim. Figures available paint a dire situation of millions of idle youths condemned to the street corner and economically inactive. Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBC) reeled out figures confirming the consistent pattern of worsening unemployment in the country, rising from 9.9 per cent in 2015 to 19.70 per cent in the last quarter of 2016 to 23.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2018. In real terms, some 21 million Nigerians, nearly as large as the population of Cote d’Ivoire, are idle and create huge social problems out there in the streets.

• Thisdaylive