Nigeria’s FInance Minister has announced that the country is now Africa’s largest economy, after a long overdue rebase calculation of its GDP almost doubled it to $510 billion.
Speaking based on data from its Bureau of Statistics, the country’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said “Nigeria has moved to be the largest economy by GDP size in Africa” and has moved to be the 26th largest economy in the world.
Rebasing is done at least every three years by most countries as a way of ensuring a nation’s GDP statistics give the most up-to-date picture of an economy as possible. Unlike these other countries, Nigeria had not updated the components in its GDP base year since 1990.
Nigeria’s 24-year-long wait was said to have been caused by many factors, most importantly debt relief. A planned rebasing in 2000 was shelved to pursue debt relief from the Paris Club and multilateral lenders, as a review would have created a better economic image for Nigeria which would have made its case for relief from lenders a bad case.
Having gotten the debt relief in 2005, the country today enjoys one of the lowest debt to GDP Ratios, with a GDP growth that has been one of Africa’s highest in recent times, averaging 7 percent per year.
Sectors such as telecommunications, aviation, e-commerce and its film industry, popularly known as Nollywood, have now been factored in to give a better and more accurate picture.
The new figure ($509.9bn, according to Nigeria Bureau of Statistics) makes Nigeria the 26th largest economy in the world, and could see it replace South Africa as the continent’s only G20 member..
However, a substantial portion of Nigeria’s over 170 million population do not feel the effect country’s economic growth, as many continue to live in dire situations. According to the World Bank’s most recent poverty survey report, 61 percent of the oil-rich country’s citizens live on less than a dollar a day.
According to Nigeria’s Chief Statistician, Yemi Kale, figures should not be seen as an end in themselves but should be used to help the government shape policy for the future.
At present, Nigeria is faced with infrastructural inadequacy, unemployment, widespread corruption, rampant oil theft and a raging Islamist insurgency in the north. Thus, there is no gainsaying that Africa’s most populous nation still has a lot of catching up to do, as South Africa, which it displaced from first position, still remains the continent’s most developed economy.
