The World Bank has revealed that Nigeria’s economy has been slipping since 1995 and had continued the downward trend up till 2018.

In its latest report on the regional economy titled, ‘Africa’s Pulse’ which x-rays the growth performance in different sectors in the economies of sub-saharan African countries, the World Bank ranked Nigeria among the bottom 19.

The apex bank disclosed that its analyses  involved a series of macroeconomic variables for 44 sub-Saharan African countries from 1995 to 2018, adding that the taxonomy is used to help identify the factors correlated with success or failure in economic growth performance in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The bottom rung consists of 19 countries: Angola, Burundi, Botswana, the Republic of Congo, the Comoros , Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Lesotho, Mauritania, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Eswatini, Chad, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 

“These countries did not show any progress in their economic performance from 1995–2008 to 2015–18. For instance, their median economic growth rate decelerated, from 5.4 percent per year in 1995–2008 to 1.2 percent per year in 2015–18,” the institution said.

The middle tercile countries were Benin, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, Niger, Sudan, São Tomé and Príncipe, Togo and Uganda.

According to the report, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tanzania made the top tercile.