How Kaduna’s N2tr economy struggles with shutdown

Kaduna state, especially its metropolis witnessed what was described as a major shutdown yesterday as the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) protested the mass sack of workers by the state government.

There are fears that the shutdown which affected the transport, finance and power sectors could affect the robust economy of the state believed to be among the top performers in Nigeria.

According to a statistics report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released in 2019, as of 2017, Kaduna has a nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of N2.69 trillion and ranked as the 10th largest economy in Nigeria.

Services and agriculture dominated the GDP by N1.37tr. However, these services were worst affected by the mass shutdown yesterday which became widespread since Sunday.

According to a 2020 report by the Oxford Business Group, since 2015, the state has attracted investments in excess of $800 million. At the moment, companies have committed to investing about $2.1 billion over the next two years.

In terms of IGR, the Oxford Business Group report quoted Governor Nasir el-Rufai as saying the state doubled its IGR from N13bn in 2015 to N26bn in 2017. It further rose to N44bn in taxes in 2019 after the tax process became simplified through legislation.

Daily Trust further learnt that some of the industries outside the city centre were not affected. Olam Farms located on the outskirt of the Kaduna - Abuja road was not affected as its staff members were in the office yesterday after the Sallah break

“We are aware of the situation but you know we are not really in the city centre, so

I don’t think we need to bother ourselves at least for now,” said a senior official.

Meanwhile, experts said billions of naira would have been lost to the grounding of businesses in the state.

An ex banker and economist said the strike would have been avoided if the state governor had negotiated with the unions.

“Goods are transported to the north through Kaduna and from the north through Kaduna to other parts of Nigeria. Imagine the losses because of the power outage, the logistics, transportation and others. It runs into billions imagine the hospitals, hotels, transportation, micro businesses that have shut down.

The economy is crippled. It will further increase the very bad security situation.”

John Okon, another analyst said over N50 million may have been lost in the two days so far especially as power outages persisted and fuel stations were shutting down.