The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has released the gross domestic product, GDP, report for the first quarter of 2017, which showed that some sectors of the economy are looking up, however, the country is yet to exit recession.

According to the report, the economy contracted by 0.52 percent year-on-year which the NBS said is the best performance in the last four quarters.

The oil sector saw a boost in its fortune as it contributes 8.9 percent of the country’s GDP, as against the 6.75 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016, while the non-oil GDP grew by 0.72 percent to record the best performance when compared to -0.33 percent in Q4 2016.

Despite this performance, the contribution of the non-oil sector to GDP declined by nearly two percent from 93.25 percent in Q4 2016 to 91.10 percent.

Transport services GDP contracted by 4.01 percent in Q1 2017 from -2.63 percent in Q4 2016 and 2.23 percent in Q1 2016.

Statistician general of the federation, Yemi Kale, said that many sectors of the economy turned positive but failed to get the country out of recession.

This is contrary to some remarks by several top government officials to the effect that the Nigeria Economy is no longer in recession.

Among the public servants that have said this is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, during a public hearing organized on the amendment of 8 Maritime sector bills on Monday.

“These Bills are indeed very important and more so now that we as a country are rethinking our economic master plan with the aim of avoiding a future relapse into the kind of nail biting recession which we have just exited from,” Dogara said.

Various local and international financial organizations, including the World Bank, IMF, CBN and the ministry of finance have all, at various times, predicted that Nigeria should be out of recession by the third or fourth quarter of 2017.