Nigeria’s population tripled without corresponding economic expansion since Shagari era -Duke

*Links hardship, social unrest to failure of productivity
Former Cross River state governor and presidential candidate of Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, Donald Duke, said yesterday Nigeria’s economy has effectively shrunk since the Second Republic because government spending and productive capacity have failed to grow in line with the country’s population. Duke said Nigeria was still operating around the same dollar-denominated budget recorded under former President Shehu Shagari more than four decades ago, despite its population increasing from about 76 million to an estimated 230 million. Speaking to journalists in Abuja, he blamed the country’s worsening cost-of-living crisis on deca...