Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed that Nigeria’s average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate has recorded decline in the last decade (2014 to 2024).
She stated this in an address to the annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) on Sunday.
According to Okonjo-Iweala, the country’s economic fortunes witnessed a reversal following the decade between 2000 and 2014, during which the average GDP growth rate was approximately 3.8 per cent.
She said many of the big problems the NBA is grappling today have their root in Nigeria’s failure to sustain rate of economic growth and development that consistently outpaced the growth of our population.
“For example, in the decade between 2000 and 2014, we have an average GDP growth rate of 3.8% well above our population growth rate of 2.6% per annum, meaning that people were on average truly improving their standard of living.
“During the following decade, average annual GDP per capita has been negative around minus 0.9% meaning people were worse off because we were not able to sustain prior positive growth momentum,” Okonjo-Iweala added.
The former finance minister said the consistent GDP growth outpaced the nation’s population growth, which was only around 2.6 per cent annually.
However, she pointed out that since 2014, the situation has reversed, with GDP showing a negative growth rate of 0.9 per cent, as the government has been unable to sustain the positive growth achieved by previous administrations.
Okonjo-Iweala said the country needs to sustain good economic policies irrespective of the administration or political party in power in order to foster development in the country.
