ABUJA: Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy, slipped into recession for the second time in four years, hit by both the coronavirus pandemic and falling oil prices, official figures revealed Saturday. The third-quarter 2020 real GDP shrank for a second consecutive quarter by 3.62 percent, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday.

"Cumulative GDP for the first 9 months of 2020 therefore stood at -2.48 percent," it added. The agency blamed falling oil prices and the effects of the coronavirus epidemic.

GDP related to oil shrank by 13.89 percent, compared to 6.63 in the second quarter, said the third-quarter report. Non-oil GDP shrank 2.51 percent over the same period, compared to 6.05 percent in the second quarter. Already in the second quarter, Nigeria's economy contracted by six percent.