Nigeria becoming economic basket case, says ex-President Obasanjo
A former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has said Nigeria is becoming an economic basket case.
The country has seen its debt stock rise significantly in recent years, hitting N31.01 trillion at the end of the second quarter of this year from N12.12 trillion in June 2015, according to the Debt Management Office.
“Today, Nigeria is fast drifting to a failed and badly divided state; economically, our country is becoming a basket case and poverty capital of the world, and socially, we are firming up as an unwholesome and insecure country,” Obasanjo said on Sunday via its Twitter handle.
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry said last week that it was deeply concerned about the country’s rising debt portfolio without corresponding impact on output growth and economic development.
“The growing level of the country’s debt is fast becoming unsustainable in the light of dwindling oil prices and production.
Nigeria has the largest poor population in sub-Saharan Africa, with 79 million extremely poor in 2018, according to the World Bank.
Last week,the World Bank said it had revised its 2020 forecast for Nigeria’s economy to -4.1 percent for the previous projection of -3.2 percent, saying the country’s near-term outlook is subject to “considerable uncertainty”.
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused a sharp drop in the price of oil, its main source of government revenue.
