Nigeria's Economy back on track, says Finance Minister

By emmanuel MALAGU

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, says Nigeria’s economy has stabilised.

Oyedele started this on Thursday while briefing State House correspondents after the 158th meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) in Abuja.

He, however, said the priority was now to transform economic stability into shared prosperity for Nigerians.

“Our real Gross Domestic Product growth rate was 3.89 per cent for Q1 of 2026, up from 3.13 per cent one year ago,” he said.

Oyedele projected that Nigeria’s GDP growth rate would exceed four per cent in 2026, reflecting continued improvement in economic activity.

He said inflation had also declined significantly, reaching 15.43 per cent at the end of July, compared with 24.94 per cent a year earlier.

According to Oyedele, Nigeria’s trade surplus nearly doubled from N17.7 trillion in 2025 to N34.7 trillion by the first quarter of 2026.

He said public debt remained moderate at 13.7 per cent of GDP, amounting to N159.28 trillion.

“Debt service as a percentage of revenue is on the decline, from nearly 100 per cent as of 2022 to less than 60 per cent as of 2025,” he said.

Oyedele said the economic progress was also reflected in improved assessments by international market rating agencies.

“This is also part of the recognition by the market rating agencies,” he said.

He said Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and S&P had all upgraded Nigeria’s sovereign credit rating between April 2025 and May 2026.

“The first coordinated alignment in over a decade. So, they all agree,” Oyedele said.

The minister said Nigeria also exited the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in October 2025.

He added that the country exited the European Union’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing deficiency list in January 2026.

According to him, the developments would reduce costs and friction associated with cross-border capital flows into Nigeria.

Oyedele also announced Nigeria’s reclassification from an unclassified market to a frontier market.

“Nigeria has now been reclassified to frontier market. This is good news for us as a country,” he said.

He said the reclassification presented opportunities for Nigeria to accelerate economic growth and lift more citizens out of poverty.

“We see opportunities ahead for the country, especially how we accelerate growth and lift our people out of poverty,” Oyedele said.

He said NEC identified agriculture, energy, manufacturing, mining and the digital economy as priority sectors for accelerated development.

Oyedele said 81.4 per cent of Nigerians worked in agriculture and non-tradable services, requiring greater attention to those sectors.

“Council deliberated that there is a need for us to accelerate growth in these sectors where majority of our people work,” he said.

He said stronger growth in those sectors would help reduce poverty and narrow the inequality gap across the country.

“That way, we lift them out of poverty and we close the inequality gap,” Oyedele said.

The minister, however, acknowledged that significant challenges remained and required coordinated efforts from the government and other stakeholders.

“Key areas identified include geopolitical conflict, commodity shocks, persistent food inflation and the need to manage election cycle fiscal risk,” he said.

Oyedele also highlighted the need to address negative pre-election narratives and ensure economic perceptions remained supported by available data.

He said the government must focus on creating jobs while managing Nigeria’s vulnerability to foreign-exchange shocks.

“There is a tendency to be negative pre-election, even though it is not supported by data, to ensure there is job-rich growth,” he said.

He added that managing foreign-exchange vulnerability would remain essential to sustaining economic stability and translating current gains into broader prosperity.

Credit NAN: Texts excluding Headline