As the National Bureau
of Statistics debunked the claim credited to the Statistician-General
of the Federation and NBS, Yemi Kale that Nigeria still in recession, Nigerians’
interest in recession in the last seven days has surged.
Infoprations
discovered that Nigerians’ interest in understanding recession was high the
moment the news filtered that the country is still in recession on August 20
2018. For the first time after the country’s statistics agency announced the exit
from the recession, the search volume of recession reached 2,805 on August 25
2018.
Analysis reveals that throughout the
seven days examined by Infoprations,
Nigerians sought knowledge on economic recession, causes of economic recession,
recession in Nigeria among others queries, indicating the need to understand
what they should do if the recession is real.
Analysis further
reveals that the more Nigerians had interest in knowing happenings around the
recession as being speculated the higher they have interest in understanding it
through the National Bureau of Statistics. Infoprations
found that one percent interest in recession increased Nigerians’ curiosity in NBS
by 27.7%. Analysis suggests that
Nigerians did not connect their understanding of the recession with President
Muhammadu Buhari. Searching for the recession is not a function of
understanding it through President Buhari. One percent interest in recession decreases
interest in President Buhari by 9.9%.
Sunday Ichedi, the Head of Public
Affairs and International Relations Unit, has earlier said: “We want to
emphasise and state categorically that the economy is out of recession and at
no time did the NBS or its CEO state otherwise as has been reported.
“Recall that it was the same bureau that
announced the end of recession in the second quarter of 2017. “This followed
the announcement of the first positive growth in the nation’s Gross Domestic
product (GDP) due to five quarters of contraction.
“Economic growth as measured by GDP has
remained positive ever since (0.72 per cent, 1.17 per cent and 2.11 per cent in
the second third and fourth quarter 2017 and 1.95 per cent in the first quarter
of 2018).
“The NBS has stated several times that
the stages after an economic recession is an economic recovery where the
economy moves gradually following the end of a recession toward sustainable
strong growth. “This is the stage of recovery that we are now and was alluded
to by the statistician-general during his interview.
“That the economy is in the second stage
of recovery, heading toward sustainable growth, which is the last stage cannot
and should not be wrongly interpreted as the economy is still in a recession,’’
Mr Ichedi said.
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