Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed has made wild claims concerning the well-being of Nigeria’s economy despite recession.
Meanwhile, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Nov 21 showed that the nation has slid into its second recession in five years, having recorded its second quarterly GDP decline in 2020.
Reacting to the report, Minister Lai assured Nigerians not to panic as other countries such as Hungary , Spain are currently suffering worse fates.
He noted Nigeria will soon come out of recession following the implementation of intervention policies, with the fiscal and monetary interventions.
Speaking in an interview with NTA on Wednesday Nov 25, Lai Mohammed said;
“It is true we are in a recession. Recession comes when a country records two consecutive quarters of negative growths. But we must go beyond that to understand that despite that, our economy is still very well in circumstances.
“The main reason why we have entered into this recession is the oil sector. The oil sector recorded -13.89% and that is the worst in 14 quarters. Of course, it is easy to understand why; with the pandemic, there is low demand for oil…but when you look at the non-oil sector which is about -2.51 % in Q3, it is far better than what it was in the Q2.
“Overall, yes, we are in a recession and it is inevitable but while our Q2 result was -6.1%, South Africa was -50% and as we speak today, Finland, Hungary, Spain, Mexico, Russia, Romania, Belgium, Austria have all fallen into recession.
“But we are very confident that with the intervention policies, with the fiscal and monetary interventions the government has put in place, the recession will be short-lived.” Lai Mohammed said
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