Nigeria ranks 120 of 177 countries ranked in the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, according to the latest scores from the Index, published annually by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation.

It said, after a slight improvement in the previous ranking, Nigeria slipped by 1.2 and was grouped under mostly un-free in the economic freedom ranking.

The Sub-Saharan Africa’s overall level of economic freedom “remains weaker than that of any other,” the Index said.

A majority of countries in this region either fall into the Index’s “mostly un-free” or “repressed” categories, it said.

According to the table, 15 of the world’s 33 “repressed” economies are in Sub-Saharan Africa and 22 in the next lowest, “mostly un-free” category.

Sub Saharan Africa had continued to lag far behind the five other regions of the world in overall economic freedom, it noted.

A statement by the editors on Monday said, “It is the last in seven of 10 measures of economic freedom and collectively scores about  13 points behind average world scores in business freedom and more than 10 points behind in property rights and freedom from corruption.”

Director, Initiative for Public Analysis, Mr Thompson Ayodele, said, “Nigeria continues to ranks low in the Index of Economic Freedom because of the increasing role of government within the economy.

Government spending has increased. We have continued to spend unearned money. Government borrowing has also crowded out private borrowing in the economy while debts owed-local contractors have ballooned.  Ironically, government seems to think that more borrowing is the answer to our economic problem.

He also said, “The private sector, particularly small business, still remains engine of growth in the economy. Since the begging of this administration Nigeria resorted to more borrowing while other loans are in the pipeline.