MANAGING THE COVID-19 NIGERIAN ECONOMY: POLICY RETROSPECTION

Covid-19 pandemic reached Nigeria in February 2020 with its debilitating characteristics of lockdown and social distance. The Nigerian economy responded with all socio-economic indices turning negative between February and August 2020.With deteriorating socio-economic indicators, the Nigerian government reacted with Covid-19 containment policies which yielded positive results in limiting the spread of the pandemic. On the other hand, the other policies aim at stimulating economic revival has yielded little anticipated results. The government embarked of conflicting policies of expansion and contraction simultaneously thus frustrating the attainment of set goals of reviving the economy. A central sub-sector of the economy with potentials for reviving the economy - peasant farming is altogether ignored. Structured on the theoretical framework of new classical school of economic thought, the paper employed retrospective methodology for analysis. The way forward is to embark on short run expansionary policies. All contraction policies like increase taxation should be reversed. Specific short run policies should be directed at the surplus labour and land in the rural peasant agricultural sector using the channels of traditional rulers and community based organizations. The short term policies should be in line with the lifespan of staple crops like rice hence surplus food produced will stifle the galloping inflation and the resources injected in the rural areas will reduce the worsening unemployment. These positive short run outcomes would expunge the economy out of the economic morass occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic and guarantee sustainable economic growth.