NBS: Nigeria’s economic resilience hinged on agriculture — Prof Ojuwo | Tellwell Newspaper
Nigeria’s economy has exhibited resilience in the face of global economic upheavals due to the contribution of agriculture to its gross domestic product (GDP), a Presidential economic adviser said.
In an exclusive interview with cbdmediaedge obtained by Tellwell Newspaper, Professor Ode Ojuwo, a member of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) and former adviser to president Olusegun Obasanjo on economic affairs, said the degree of resilience of the economy was found in the contribution of agriculture which has attracted farmers to participate, as a survival strategy, in the farming of food crops, come rain, come sunshine.
According to him, farmers are motivated by the need to survive by all means and to have an occupation.
“The Nigerian economy is overly resilient, if not, the pressure on the economy is enough to explode it,” Professor Ojuwo said.
“The pressure to survive normally pushes the farmers to produce varieties of crops that contribute positively to the GDP in Nigeria. This combination of two factors makes the economy to be resilient and has held it together for a long time” he said.
The second reason, he said, was the availability of varieties of crops in Nigeria which unlike many other countries where there is limit to the diversification of production.
“Malawi for example, relies only on maize while in Egypt, the lack of bread could cause a major riot,” said Professor Ojowu said.
He however warned that farmers are increasingly getting old and their children are not following them to the farm, thereby putting the resilience of the economy on a litmus test.
Similarly, the insecurity on the farms is a major concern that might affect the trajectory of the growth of agriculture in the future, he further stated.
Professor Ojuwo commended the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as an organisation that has improved on its data collection methodology, which was recently digitalized, thereby allowing raw data collection in the remotest part of the country.
In the report released last week by the NBS, Nigeria’s GDP grew by 3.54% year-on-year in real terms in the second quarter of 2022, an improvement compared to the 3.11% growth recorded in the previous quarter.
The data also showed that the industrial sector contributed 19.4%, accounting for 57.35% of the GDP, while agriculture contributed 23.4%.
Nigeria’s non-oil sector contributed 93.67% to the nation’s GDP in the second quarter of 2022, higher than the share recorded in the second quarter of 2021 which was 92.58% and also higher than the 93.37 recorded in first quarter of 2022.
Of major concern in the report is the fact that food inflation, which has a direct bearing on the life of ordinary people, has increased since last year. Indeed, out of about 700 items in the CPI index report previously released by NBS, food and beverages represent about 51% of the basket of items that increased in inflation figure to 18.5% from 17.7% of the same previous 2021.
The food inflation has weakened household consumption and left many Nigerian poorer amidst increased prices of other commodities like gas, electricity, transportation etc.
The causes in the prices of food are partly attributable to exogenous factors like disruption in the food supply chain in the world caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, who are major exporters of agricultural products.
In Nigeria, there is also increased insecurity on the farms which limits food production, to a larger extent.
Similarly in the report, the reduction in crude production due to economic sabotage has reduced daily production from 1.6 million barrels to 1.43 million barrels in the same period of 2021.
This has denied the country the opportunity to increase revenue and gain the much-needed foreign exchange, putting unnecessary pressure on the Naira and increasing prices of goods and services in a country that has a high marginal propensity to import.
