In an obvious sign that the economic crisis in Nigeria is unrelenting, the country has lost the title of Africa’s biggest economy in dollar terms to South Africa.
South Africa which lost the position to the purported giant of Africa more than two years ago regained the position based on the Gross Domestic Product figures at the end of 2015 published recently by the International Monetary Fund. South Africa’s economy is $301 billion largely due to the Rand strengthening against the dollar while Nigeria’s GDP is $296 billion.
The home country of Nelson Mandela regaining the pole position of Africa’s biggest economy will not come as a surprise to many Nigerians and industry watchers because of the unstable and unclear economic and monetary policies of the current administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Under Buhari’s watch, the Nigerian economy shrank by 0.4% in the three months through march from a previous year of chaotic and low oil prices coupled with the shortage of foreign currency that curbed imports including fuel. In addition, Nigeria’s naira lost more than one-third of its value after the Central Bank of Nigeria removed currency peg in June after much outcry.
Nigeria had dethroned South Africa in 2014 after she rebased her gross domestic product and included industries formerly uncounted like telecoms, music, online sales, information technology, online sales, airlines and film production to emerge the biggest economy in Africa. The GDP data then showed that Nigeria’s GDP for 2013 was $509 billion compared with South Africa’s $370.3 billion.
