Makarfi reacts to NBS claim that Nigeria is out of recession

The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has reacted to report that the country is out of recession.

The former Kaduna State Governor dismissed the celebration that accompanied the report.

He stressed that the news of the exit was a mere statistics, which did not reflect the “reality as it affects ordinary Nigerians.”

“For any economic recovery to be meaningful, it must positively impact on the lives of the people at the lower level,” he told Punch.

Recall that the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, had on Tuesday said Nigeria’s economy was now out of recession as Gross Domestic Product, GDP, returned to positive growth.

NBS disclosed that the nation’s GDP grew by 0.55 per cent in real terms in the second quarter of 2017.

According to NBS, Nigeria’s GDP shrank by 0.52 per cent, year-on-year, in real terms in the first quarter of 2017, representing the fifth consecutive quarter of contraction since the first quarter of 2016.