Notwithstanding the moderate GDP growth after the COVID-19induced recession, the continued shrink in the agricultural sector has been a serious concern among stakeholders

The government said the amount was established after a postdisaster assessment on the 2022 flooding by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, in the Global Rapid Damage Estimation Note (GRDEN).

Presenting the report, Sadiya Farouq said the objective of the GRDEN developed by the World Bank’s Disaster-Resilience Analytics and Solutions team, was to assess the economic impact of the June – November 2022 floods across the country.

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On some of the key findings of the flood assessment, the report stated that all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory were affected by the 2022 flood in Nigeria with varying degrees of damages and people affected.

It read in part, “This analysis estimates that the total direct economic damages, based on currently reported statistics as of November 25, 2022, are in the range of $3.79bn to $9.12bn, with the best (median) estimate at $6.68bn.

“This includes damages to residential and non-residential buildings (including building contents), as well as damages to infrastructure, productive sectors and to cropland.”

Farouq explained that the number of persons affected rose above 4.9 million as of November 25, 2022, with significant damage to infrastructure, including roads, irrigation and river, as well as electricity projects, with around $1.23bn ($0.959 – $1.724bn) in damage expected.

The Nigerian Senate, in November 2022, disclosed that the country lost $2 billion to oil theft within eight months. The red chamber through its ad-hoc committee on the incident, revealed this following its investigations on oil theft covering January to August last year.

The group chief executive officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, had also disclosed that Nigeria was losing $1.9 billion monthly to crude oil theft.

Kyari spoke when a delegation on an anti-oil theft team led by Timipre Sylva, minister of state for petroleum resources, visited governor Okowa at the government house, Asaba.

He said Nigeria hardly met her production quota due to the activities of the economic saboteurs.

“As a country, we hardly meet our OPEC production quantum of 1.99 million barrels per day with our current production level of 1.4 million barrels per day which is currently being threatened by the activities of these economic saboteurs.

“This has done extensive damage to the environment, and losing $1.9 billion every month is colossal, considering the nature of the global economy at the moment,” Kyari said.

Two sectors played the rescuing role in the 2022 GDP performance. They are the Information and Communication sector (driven by the telecommunication sub-sector) and Service.

The Information and Communication sector is composed of the four activities of Telecommunications and Information Services; Publishing; Motion Picture, Sound Recording and Music Production; and Broadcasting.

The sector in the fourth quarter of 2022 recorded a growth rate of 10.35 percent in real terms, year-on-year. From the rate recorded in the corresponding period of 2021, there was an increase of 5.32 percent points.

On a Quarter-on-Quarter, the sector exhibited a growth of 17.23 percent in real terms. Overall, the sector grew by 9.76 percent in 2022. Of total real GDP, the sector contributed 16.22 percent in the 2022 fourth quarter, higher than in the same quarter of the previous year in which it represented 15.21 percent and higher than the preceding quarter in which it represented 15.35 percent.

The total contribution of the sector in real terms in 2022 stood at 16.51% percent higher than the 15.51 percent reported in 2021

‘Other Services’ real GDP grew by 0.06 percent (year-on-year) in Q4 2022. This growth was lower by 1.57 percent points than the growth recorded in the same period of the previous year, and higher by 2.73 percent points from Q3 2022. Quarter-on-Quarter growth was 63.27 percent. The annual growth rate of the sector in 2022 stood at 1.07 percent. The sector contributed 3.27 percent to real GDP in Q4 2022, lower than the 3.39 percent recorded for the corresponding quarter of 2021 and higher than the 2.23 percent recorded in Q3 2022.

These accounted for the positive GDP growth in the Non-Oil sector. The NonOil sector contributed 95.66 percent to the nation’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022, higher than the share recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021 which was 94.81 percent and higher than the third quarter of 2022 recorded as 94.34 percent. On the aggregate 94.33 percent was contributed in 2022, higher than the 92.76 percent reported in 2021.