By Our Staff Reporter
Nigeria’s economy shrank 6.1 percent between April and June this year as the lockdown to curb the coronavirus pandemic deterred productive activities.
The decline in gross domestic product ends a three-year streak “of low but positive real growth rates” since Nigeria began emerging from its last recession in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement. A GDP growth of 2.12 percent was reported in a comparable period last year.
In sum the economy experienced a contraction of -2.18 percent in the first half of this year compared with the growth of 2.11 percent in the same period last year. It’s the latest measure of how badly the country’s economy has been affected by coronavirus.
Another consecutive quarter of economic contraction will put Nigeria technically in a recession, the second in four years.
For the country of 200 million people, more than half of which are under 30 years old, it spells unsavoury consequences, including high unemployment and a decline in personal savings as businesses lay off workers or close shop altogether. This will translate into increased social unrest and a futther rise in crimes.