Nigeria's recession will be short-lived, Lai Mohammed says

Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, has stated that the Federal Government (FG) is confident that with the intervention policies, with the fiscal and monetary interventions have been put in place, the country's current economic recession will be short-lived.

Two days ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had said that Nigeria’s economy has slipped into another recession, the second time since 2016.

Mohammed, in an interview with NTA today, November 25, stated that the recession is inevitable due to the global collapse in oil prices occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to him, other countries like Finland, Hungary, Spain, and others have gone into recession due to the fall in the price of crude oil worldwide.

“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 a 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,” he said