OK! This is one of those rallying cries that make you wonder of the National Bureau of Statistics has its number crunching techniques on point. The Secretary of the Aguiyi Ironsi Traders Union (Ladipo Market), Mr. Christain Igbaunam told Vanguard that his members would be losing over N100billions per day to the closure. Hear him
“We have over 15,00 registered members. Individual members make not less than N10 million daily. On the average, members will be losing over N100billions on a daily basis to the closure of the market.”
Well, I know that is rudimentary assumptions but nevertheless it is worth looking into. By his own estimate the Ladipo market is worth about N36.5trillion annually about N5trillion short of Nigeria’s GDP. If he is by any chance correct then proponents of rebasing our GDP calculations have one piece of “evidence” they can rely on.
Even we we trim down his estimates to N1million a day then that is also a massive N15billion a day and N5.4trillion per annum (more than the country’s budget and more than total revenue collected from taxation this year (N5tr in 2012). Now this is Ladipo alone so what if we add Onitsha, Alaba International, Aba, Idumota, Balogun, Kano etc. Your guess is as good as mine
