Economist Prof. Akpan Ekpo argued that a projected growth rate of 4.1 percent falls short of what would be needed to meaningfully reduce poverty levels, expand employment, or shift the economy's underlying structure. Speaking on a television news channel on Thursday, Ekpo argued that Nigeria would need to sustain double-digit economic growth across a period of 15 to 20 years before any meaningful reduction in poverty levels could be achieved, drawing a distinction between growth as a statistical measure and development as a broader social outcome.
Expressing doubt about the merits of a 4.1 percent growth figure, Ekpo argued that the World Bank itself draws a distinction between growth and development, and that only sustained double-digit expansion maintained across 15 to 20 years carries enough force to make a measurable impact on poverty. He noted that even the World Bank's own report characterises the prevailing growth rate as too low to generate jobs and opportunities, and that while the institution's guidance on electricity, internet access, infrastructure, and human capital development pointed in the right direction, the pace of expansion remained too modest to bring those objectives within reach.
Noting that the World Bank had produced what he described as its clearest guidance yet, Ekpo outlined the institution's stated priorities as encompassing reliable electricity supply, consistent internet connectivity, infrastructure development, and the strengthening of human capital. He went on to raise concerns about the composition of Nigeria's economy, pointing out that the manufacturing sector had been sidelined within the country's development path despite the role it plays in driving economic transformation, and that a growth rate of 4.1 percent falls short of what would be needed to address those goals.
According to Ekpo, the report attributes economic expansion to activity in agriculture and the services sector. He noted that the conventional account of development economics traces a country's trajectory from extractive and agricultural foundations through an industrial and manufacturing phase before arriving at a service-led economy, yet the report under examination passed over that middle phase entirely.
Ekpo noted that manufacturing's share of Nigeria's gross domestic product had held below 12 percent across roughly six decades, with factory-made goods accounting for only a marginal slice of the country's total export basket. He added that a well-functioning economy, in his view, would require the sector to reach at least a 40 percent contribution to output. He reiterated that over the past six decades, that subsector's contribution to Nigeria's GDP has remained below the 12 percent mark.
Trade figures, as cited by Ekpo, place manufactured exports at roughly 2 percent of total exports, while manufactured imports account for around 48 percent of total imports. Ekpo acknowledged the World Bank's projection of 4.4 percent growth as a figure reflecting weakness, noting that a 4 percent rate fell short of what would constitute a meaningful economic transformation. He argued that a projected growth rate of 4.4 percent falls short of what the economy requires, and that reaching double-digit expansion would require the government to take deliberate steps to address electricity shortages, poverty, and insecurity as foundations for lasting economic progress.
Ekpo took the position that targeted state action on both energy infrastructure and poverty alleviation was a precondition for any push toward double-digit growth, while also contesting the notion that the country had achieved broad macroeconomic stability, citing unresolved pressures on the fiscal side as grounds for treating that assessment as premature. He cautioned that the phrase "macroeconomic performance and stabilisation" requires careful unpacking, given that macroeconomics at its broadest encompasses both monetary and fiscal policy, with the central bank serving as the governing institution on the monetary side.
He noted that fiscal pressures remained unresolved, while also questioning the basis for claims of macroeconomic stability, arguing that any such stability had not translated into meaningful conditions at the ground level. He went on to note that macroeconomic conditions are built upward from microeconomic foundations — households, families, and businesses — and that when those individual units are aggregated, allowance must be made for aggregation bias, adding that an economy cannot sustain stability when only one side of it is in balance.
Ekpo described the World Bank report as an advisory document rather than a cause for celebration, noting that the conditions it depicted amounted to a degree of economic steadiness rather than outright progress. He argued that growth alone does not guarantee development, that any meaningful expansion would need to reach at least ten percent annually and hold at that level for fifteen to twenty years, and that the report therefore falls short of what warrants celebration.
Ekpo noted that the figures did not indicate the government had handled everything incorrectly, while also advising against drawing broad conclusions from single-digit growth alone, describing the data as an indication that greater effort was needed. His view was that the government's track record held some merit, though he drew attention to the limits of growth data that scarcely kept pace with the expanding population.
Ekpo pointed to two persistent obstacles — the manner in which reform efforts have been approached and the limited capacity of the state sector — as reasons why Nigeria has found it difficult, across many years of economic guidance, to convert those recommendations into tangible development, adding that several foundational concerns would need to be addressed before any growth rate could be considered a genuine achievement. He acknowledged that the economy faced considerable headwinds, adding that the market-based reform path the administration had adopted was one that, by its nature, takes time before its effects reach ordinary people.
Ekpo identified reliable electricity supply as a foundational condition for achieving sustained economic growth over time. He raised the question of why reliable electricity provision had remained an unresolved problem over so many years, arguing that the technical challenge was not beyond the country's capacity and that sustained double-digit economic growth would likely follow once a functioning power supply was established.
Raising the question of why widespread deprivation persists without remedy, Ekpo put forward the argument that countries recording the fastest expansions in output had built that growth on a foundation combining state-led investment with market-based activity. Pointing to nations that have achieved rapid economic expansion, he argued that a robust public sector tends to play a dominant role alongside — and often ahead of — private enterprise in driving that kind of development.
He argued that the state sector's limited capacity calls for a more active and intentional government hand in redirecting the economy away from consumption and toward domestic production, and that while private enterprise operates according to profit motives rather than development goals, restructuring the economy's underlying architecture remains the path he regards as necessary. Ekpo argued that lifting Nigeria's output would require a pivot toward making goods — both for home markets and overseas buyers — with non-oil products and services at the centre of that drive.
He expressed the view that shifting toward manufacturing and productive output, rather than relying on consumer-led activity, would serve the country's interests over the medium and long run, and pointed to the World Bank's own findings, which attributed part of the recorded growth to a rise in domestic demand. Ekpo characterised the economy as one driven by consumption rather than production.
Ekpo observed that Nigeria's economy remains heavily reliant on the oil sector, and argued that expanding into manufacturing and exporting non-oil goods and services is what broader economic advancement would require. He noted that trade data showing gains in export performance tends to point toward the oil sector, where crude shipments abroad have historically driven those increases. He argued that the state ought to take a more active part in steering economic growth, particularly through the provision of infrastructure and the foundational conditions businesses require to function and expand, and that meaningful government participation in the economy was necessary given that the private sector operates primarily around profit-driven objectives.
Ekpo went on to challenge the prevailing reliance on trickle-down economic theory, arguing that governments bear the primary responsibility for driving large-scale economic outcomes and that deliberate, targeted management of the economy is now required rather than passive distribution from the top down. He urged that recommendations from the Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund among them — be weighed against Nigeria's own economic conditions before any wholesale adoption takes place.
Countries that recorded the swiftest growth in output tended, by Ekpo's account, to have moved away from the policy prescriptions associated with the Bretton Woods institutions rather than adhered to them. He explained that devaluing oil causes a currency to lose value, on the assumption that cheaper exports will drive up export volumes and, in turn, generate greater revenue — though blindly following such prescriptions, he argued, tends to entrench economic underdevelopment rather than overcome it. He noted that crude oil dominates the country's export profile, with non-oil exports playing a negligible role, and that because neither the price nor the production volume of that oil is set domestically, the revenue it generates falls outside the government's direct control.
Ekpo pointed out that nations including China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia had pursued their own development paths rather than adhering strictly to Bretton Woods prescriptions, adding that such frameworks were not, in his view, a viable source of development financing. He argued that adhering to those guidelines would entrench economic stagnation rather than growth, and called on Nigeria to pivot toward manufacturing and the export of non-oil goods and services instead. He remarked that while outside advisers could offer guidance, each country bore the responsibility of assessing its own economic conditions and charting its own course, with a particular need to build up the manufacturing sector and develop non-oil goods and services across the full production chain.
Turning to the service sector, Ekpo argued that its present configuration lacked the capacity to generate the kind of broad-based economic transformation the country needed, even as he called for boosting exports and foreign exchange earnings to build productivity and expand employment. He contended that policymakers had steered the economy away from its primary sectors — agriculture and mining — toward services, yet argued that the service sector in Nigeria remained too underdeveloped and too disconnected from industry and manufacturing to carry the weight of genuine economic growth.
Ekpo noted some headway by the Central Bank of Nigeria on monetary policy, while pointing to elevated lending rates as a barrier to investment, and described the broader economic dynamic as one driven heavily by what he terms financialisation within the fintech sector. He noted that the CBN had gone some way toward rebuilding its credibility, pointing to a 350-basis-point reduction in the monetary policy rate, while cautioning that commercial lending rates remained largely unaffected and were running at roughly 30 percent on average.
His call urged the CBN to examine the actual sources of commercial banks' profit margins, on the basis that interest rates at those levels leave borrowers without a viable means of generating sufficient returns to service their debts. Ekpo also raised the question of whether banks were prioritising returns from short-term financial instruments over their role in funding medium- and long-term investment, while acknowledging that trust had been restored in the sector, and separately flagged the absence of meaningful coordination between monetary and fiscal policymakers.
He noted that the fiscal dimension remained the primary area of difficulty, pointing to a memorandum of understanding recently formalised between the central bank and fiscal authorities as a step toward coordinating their respective approaches. He went on to clarify that the arrangement had always included the Minister of Finance and the Accountant-General as board and Monetary Policy Committee members within the central bank itself, making any concern about coordination a matter of form rather than substance. He argued that just as the central bank's reaction function makes room for fiscal policy, the fiscal side ought equally to make room for monetary policy in return.
Ekpo pointed to a cluster of pressures weighing on Nigeria's public finances — thin revenue streams, the outsized expense of running government, and a debt burden that has continued to build — while also noting that inter-agency coordination ought to happen as a matter of course, without requiring a formal memorandum of understanding to mandate it. He argued that fiscal pressures — a shortfall in revenue, the mounting cost of running government, and a growing debt burden — made any claim of economic stability difficult to sustain.
He pointed out that the economy lacks stability in the strict technical sense, and went on to observe that political pressures tend to complicate the work of economic policymaking, noting that the current climate invites a great deal of commentary from various directions. Ekpo argued that Nigeria's foremost task lies in reshaping its economy away from a consumption-led model toward one grounded in domestic production, contending that reorienting the economy away from consumer spending and toward domestic output represented the defining policy problem of the moment.
