APC Condemns Nigeria's GDP Rebasing Exercise.

The All Progressives Congress said that by rebasing Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the Federal Government only 'ridiculed' itself.
This position was expressed in a statement issued on Thursday by the APC Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Nigeria became the largest African economy after its GDP was rebased on Sunday, April 6.
The APC said that the rebasing was the FG's response to the World Bank report that had declared Nigeria a country with one of highest levels of poverty.

"The federal government has only succeeded in opening itself to ridicule," the APC said. "The largest economy with the largest population of the poor, the largest economy with the largest population of unemployed, the largest economy with the largest population of citizens living in darkness, and the largest economy with the worst infrastructure," it added.

According to the statement, this shows that Nigeria's economic growth celebrated by the current administration is "not a result of deliberate public policies".

"Policies of government are expected to result in reduction in unemployment, increase in capacity utilization by manufacturers, increased access to basic needs of life, … increase in transparency and accountability, etc."

The APC further said that what the FG managed to achieve by rebasing GDP was the shift of public attention pressing problems such as insecurity, inadequate power supply and unemployment.
To support its point, the APC referred to statistics form other sources.

"The business community has noted that while Nigeria, with the rebased GDP, is now ranked number 26 with regard to the size of the economy in 2013, it is ranked 147 in its ease of Doing Business report of the World Bank, out of the 189 countries profiled. Even Sierra Leone and Liberia had better ranking. In the same vein, our ranking in the UNDP Human Development Index is 153, out of 210 countries. There is no better illustration of the disconnect between growth and development."

Gross Domestic Product, or simply GDP, is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period, usually one year.
GDP rebasing is a common statistical procedure undertaken to ensure that national accounts statistics present the most accurate reflection of the economy as possible. It is a process of replacing present price structure (base year) to compile volume measures of GDP with a new (more recent) base year.
Nigeria's old GDP base year was 1990. Now 2008 is the base year.
After rebasing, Nigeria's GDP grew by 89% – from N42.4trillion to N80.2 trillion. However, this has not made Nigerians richer as nearly 100 million of them live on less than $1 a day.
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