2023 Presidency: Keyamo’s Errors On Economy Demarket Tinubu, APC
OpenLife Nigeria reports that in the estimation of economic experts, the views of the spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential campaign council, Barrister Festus Keyamo, on ‘Politics Today,’ a political programme on Channels TV on Friday, on the basis of comparing the growth trend of Nigeria and other global economies clearly de marketed the prospects of the presidential aspiration of Asiwaju Bola Amhed Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, while defending the record of the Buhari’s administration on the economy, claimed that Nigeria has done better in terms of managing inflation than some advanced economies like the US, Canada, Spain and Germany.
According to the minister, those countries have experienced a higher percentage rise in inflation rate than Nigeria. He added that the opposition cannot campaign on the prices of commodities without putting it from a global perspective. “It is very lazy to campaign on ‘what is the price of tomato? What is the price of tomatoes now?’ “Look, you must put it in the context of a global macro-economic situation of the major countries around the world. And to tell you that Nigeria has done extremely well in a context. Don’t quote me that Nigeria has done extremely well when people are suffering, but in the context of what we have seen in the global economy.
“Let me tell you this, the inflation you see today was hovering around 13 per cent—as at 2020 during the pandemic, now we are doing 18 per cent which is around a percentage (increase) of five per cent. That five per cent increased in one of the worst periods of human existence. However, we are better than major countries around the world, like the US, Canada, Russia, like Spain, like Germany. Go and fact-check me.
“I am not saying their inflation is 18 per cent or more, I am not talking of the figure, but the percentage of the increase. In other words, we have tried to keep inflation down, more than other countries that are even bigger than us. Ghana is worse; it did 19 per cent in terms of rise in inflation. “The inflation in Ghana is about 29 per cent to 30 per cent,” he said.
Meanwhile, unknown to Keyamo, the US he cited as example has picked up economically with vital economic index looking good.
For instance, the United States of America’s economy has now regained all jobs lost during the pandemic, after a blowout July jobs report that showed a gain of 528,000 jobs, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The massive monthly gain was more than double the 250,000 that economists were expecting, according to Refinitiv.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5% after holding at 3.6% for the past four months. The July jobless rate matched the half-century low last seen in February 2020.
Friday’s employment snapshot marks the 19th consecutive month of job growth and is the highest monthly gain since the economy added 714,000 jobs in February. July’s job totals outpace the average monthly gain of 388,000 jobs of the past four months, BLS data shows.
President Joe Biden on Friday hailed the July report and took a victory lap by crediting his economic policies for the gains.
“It’s the result of my economic plan to build the economy from the bottom up and middle out,” he said in a statement. “I ran for president to rebuild the middle class — there’s more work to do, but today’s jobs report shows we are making significant progress for working families.”
The employment growth was widespread across sectors, with health care and leisure and hospitality seeing some of the biggest gains. However, employment in that key service sector is still more than 1 million jobs below its pre-pandemic level, according to the BLS.
Of the 528,000 jobs added, the lion’s share of the gains were in private-sector service-providing areas, including 122,000 in education and health services; 96,000 in leisure and hospitality (including 74,000 in restaurants and bars); and 89,000 in the professional and business services sector.
Prior to Friday’s report, which also included upward revisions totaling 28,000 jobs for May and June, the nation was about 524,000 jobs short of the employment level seen in February 2020.
In one giant fell swoop, that gap was erased.
However, a notable laggard persists: public-sector employment, notably city and county government and public education. Government-related jobs are 597,000 below where they were pre-pandemic.
“There’s just really strong competition with the private sector right now, and the public sector has not kept up its wage hikes in order to be able to compete with the private sector,” Nick Bunker, Indeed’s economic research director for North America, stated.
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