Pro-Buhari group faults IMF’s projections

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has faulted the forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would contract by 3.4% in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a press statement released Thursday afternoon, the BMO lambasted the IMF for disregarding President Muhammadu Buhari’s efforts in stabilising the economy in the face of the current crisis.

The BMO acknowledged the IMF’s prognosis that Nigeria’s economy would encounter challenges due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak but maintained that the fall in the nation’s GDP would not be as profound as the 3.4% envisaged by the IMF.

“Given the Buharinomic policies, Nigeria’s economy under President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 consistently surpassed IMF’s negative projection on our nation’s GDP growth.

“The real GDP grew at an annual growth rate of 1.91 per cent in 2018, an increase of 1.09 per cent than 0.82 per cent recorded in 2017, compared to IMF projection of 1.9 per cent in 2018.

“The nation’s GDP in 2019, according to NBS, indicate a real growth of 2.27 per cent, compared to 1.91 per cent in 2018, while the real GDP grew by 5.59% quarter on quarter, this also surpassed the IMF 2019 projection of 2.1 per cent”.

“As part of Nigeria’s efforts to contain the economic and social fallout from the COVID-19 crises, President Buhari has announced large fiscal stimulus packages.

“This is to further consolidate on the diversification of the economy which began in 2016 and facilitate a domestic-focused economy through home-grown solutions that are slowly but steadily taking our economy away from being foreign dependent,” the BMO statement read in part.

The BMO highlighted other measures taken by the president to cushion the effect of COVID-19 as directive on prompt payment of salaries, social intervention schemes, the N500 billion intervention fund, N3.5 trillion CBN stimulus package for businesses and households among others.

It noted that government planned to employ 1000 people from each of the 774 local governments in the country after the menace of the pandemic had been dealt with.

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“The more the IMF predicts doom for Nigeria, the stronger the country gets. We’ve beaten IMF on more than three occasions in its recent predictions for Nigeria and we’ll do it again, given the short and long term Buharinomics.

“The IMF should know that President Muhammadu Buhari has taken a lot of pre-emptive steps to shield the country from any unexpected losses as he had done in the past. We urge IMF to, at all times, factor in the realities on ground before making a projection on our GDP growth.”

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