By Uche Mbah
The Coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the earth and all but collapsed global economies are poised to push the Nigerian economy to three decades low, according to the International Monetary Fund, IMF.
In their latest projection, the International Fund Managers insisted that the ailing west African country will be one of the countries to be worst affected as the world reels towards the worst economic turmoil that may be comparable to the notorious 1929 crash. Then, global economies shed 16% of their values in quick succession from 1929 to 1932.
This will be the second recession Nigeria will be enmeshed in within the last five years.
According to them, the Nigerian economy will recede by 3% due to COVID-19 pandemic-a worse scenario than the last recession when it receded by 1.51%. this was in 2016.
Nigeria’s economy had receded in 1987 by -10.87 and -0.6 in 1991.
“For the first time since the Great Depression, both the advanced economies and emerging and developing economies are in a recession,” she said in a briefing that marked the beginning of the April 2020 Spring meetings that are holding virtually”, said Gita Gopinath, IMF chief economist and director of the research department.
“For 2020, growth in advanced economies is projected at -6%. Emerging markets and developing economies that typically have normal growth levels well above advanced economies are also projected to have negative growth of -1% and -2.2% if you exclude China.”
The projections are the best-case scenarios.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime came into power, Nigeria has made borrowing its favorite hobby. Currently, the Central Bank of Nigeria lamented is projecting that it will not take long before Nigeria exhausts her foreign reserve.
Lack of transparency follows most of the transactions of the country’s bureaucrats.
