A Closer Look at Nigeria's Economic Performance
5 Pages Posted: 31 May 2014 Last revised: 3 Sep 2014
Date Written: August 2013
Abstract
Just how well is the Nigerian Economy performing? In the absence of a holistic report articulating the economic performance of Nigeria, no one could claim to know. There are only a lot of partial views on different aspects of the economy being expressed by different government officials. Little surprise that there will be controversies at the highest policy levels about whether the economy is weak or strong. Nigeria needs to show a stronger sense of responsibility in reforming aspects of its economic policy machinery like provision of required data, and periodic articulation of the main issues arising from the data in formal official economic reports. But more importantly, since the President and the National Assembly are the ones with the electoral mandate to manage the national economy, and unelected heads of economic agencies are their appointees, the President and the National Assembly must accept direct responsibility for policy conception and design, and leave implementation to unelected appointees in charge of economic policy agencies, but hold the appointees accountable for the tasks they are appointed to carry out.
Keywords: Nigeria, Economic Performance, Data Gaps, Economic Intelligence, Economic Policy Conception, Economic Policy Design, Economic Policy Implementation, Oversight, Accountability
JEL Classification: N01
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation