On Sunday, President Bola Tinubu put forward a defence of his administration's economic direction, pointing to gains in GDP growth, an uptick in foreign reserves, and greater revenue flows to state governments, while also citing a World Bank assessment that placed Nigeria on a trajectory of steady economic expansion.

Through a statement released by his Information and Strategy Adviser, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu cited the World Bank's October 2026 Nigeria Development Update — carrying the title "Beyond the Federal Purse: How Higher Revenues Reshaped State Priorities" — as documentation that policy choices made from 2023 onward had begun to produce measurable outcomes.

Tinubu attributed gains in government revenue, greater economic stability, and expanded capacity for public investment across all tiers of administration to three policy shifts — ending the petrol subsidy, consolidating the foreign exchange market, and tightening fiscal discipline — with the president's own statement describing those measures as difficult yet warranted steps that had opened up fiscal room for governments to direct resources toward their populations.

He pledged that the administration would maintain its reform trajectory while placing greater emphasis on inclusive growth through the Renewed Hope Agenda. He stated that the Renewed Hope Agenda 2.0 would, in his view, hasten the delivery of shared prosperity to all Nigerians, and that the period ahead held more promise than what had come before.

Nigeria's economy expanded at a rate of 4.2 per cent through the first half of 2026, according to the report's data, nudging past the 3.9 per cent recorded during the equivalent period of the previous year — a result achieved against the backdrop of ongoing armed conflict in the Middle East that weighed on conditions elsewhere across the global economy. Between 2026 and 2028, annual expansion of at least 4.4 per cent was forecast in a World Bank outlook.

Between 2023 and 2025, the federation's income grew by 69 per cent in inflation-adjusted terms, with state governments capturing the largest share of those gains. Routed through state budgets, that money pushed capital spending up by 151 per cent in real terms over the period, with roads and other transport infrastructure, agriculture, energy, and housing drawing the largest share of the increase.

Figures drawn from the report show that 29 of the 33 states redirected budget allocations toward economic infrastructure, and per-person outlays on social programmes climbed in 32 of the 33 jurisdictions examined. Own-source revenue posted real-terms growth across 31 of the 35 states examined, and over the same four-year span through 2025, 21 of those states brought their debt load down relative to the size of their economies.

Forecasts place Nigeria's total public debt load at roughly 38.1 per cent of GDP by 2026, easing down from the 40 per cent recorded against economic output in 2025. Inflation, measured at 27.6 per cent when the year opened in January 2025, had eased to 15.2 per cent by December of that year. Elevated energy costs tied to unrest across the Middle East have weighed on the pace at which inflation retreats, with World Bank projections pointing to a rate of around 12 per cent by 2028.

Over the opening six months of 2026, Nigeria's current account surplus reached $12 billion — a figure representing 7 per cent of GDP — up from the $8.6 billion posted across the same stretch of 2025. Foreign exchange holdings climbed from $45.5 billion at the close of 2025 to $53.8 billion by late August 2026.

According to the World Bank, poverty rates levelled off for the first time in roughly five years, with the institution projecting a slow but steady easing of those figures as output per person continues to rise. The report noted that signs that policy changes are taking hold have started to appear, while also identifying the conversion of those economic advances into concrete day-to-day improvements — lower food costs for households and clearer routes into the workforce for younger people — as a challenge that had yet to be fully addressed.

Tinubu described the report as a positive development and outlined plans to broaden direct cash-transfer programmes — which had by then covered over 10 million households — alongside faster rollout of compressed natural gas infrastructure and gains in farm output, healthcare delivery, and schooling, while calling on state governments to channel their increased revenues toward projects that raise living standards and strengthen public health and education. Praise for the Economic Management Team — headed by the Finance and Coordinating Economy Minister — along with state governors and other stakeholders was extended for their role in advancing the reform agenda.

The president's remarks also paired a plan to broaden compressed natural gas (CNG) transport access — framed as a way to reduce household costs — with a disclosure that the federal government had foregone collection of over N3.3 trillion in fuel-related taxes and duties, a decision tied to cushioning the effect of rising petrol prices on ordinary consumers.

At the heart of the package Tinubu put forward were three distinct elements: a combined waiver on fuel-related taxes and duties amounting to over N3.3 trillion, a temporary 30-day freeze on profit margins by NNPC Retail with bus and public transport operators given first access, and a mechanism designed to keep wholesale petrol supply costs from climbing above N1,350 per litre in order to bring greater stability to pump prices.

Aso Rock characterised NNPC Retail's decision to absorb the cost rather than pass it on to consumers as a tool for stabilising market conditions rather than a reactivation of unbudgeted government expenditure, while pointing to the disappearance of fuel queues and a narrowing of the spread between official and black-market exchange rates as evidence of broader economic stabilisation.

Tinubu argued that reduced expenses for drivers would bring down the cost of fares, potentially putting more money back into household budgets. To support the government-backed initiative promoting compressed natural gas in transport, he cited testimony from bus passengers and freight drivers who noted their fuel costs had fallen after transitioning to the fuel.

The fare for the route running between Masaka and Berger in the Federal Capital Territory had dropped to N500, down from N1,500, he noted. Fares on the Enugu-to-Nsukka route, he noted, had dropped to N1,600 from a previous N4,000. Travellers in Borno were recorded paying fares as low as N50 on CNG-powered and electric vehicles, while a government official noted that those varied experiences reflected what the administration had set out to accomplish through its investment in CNG-based transport.

Kabir, who drives a taxi for a living, reported that the same N10,000 he spent on CNG fuel stretched far enough to cover three more return journeys than his petrol-using counterparts managed on the same amount.

Coordination between the federal government, state administrations through the Nigeria Governors' Forum, and private investors formed the backbone of an effort to broaden access under the National Affordable CNG Transportation Programme, the president indicated. Fifteen buses went to Ekiti, twenty to Lagos, and fifty units were placed into operational readiness for Akwa Ibom. Thirty CNG hybrid buses and 200 electric tricycles were put into service in Katsina, while Kano took delivery of a separate fleet comprising 30 CNG buses alongside five electric-powered vehicles.

A fleet of 100 CNG-powered buses in Kaduna had collectively served upwards of 3 million riders, while a network of more than 400 accredited conversion centres had retrofitted over 120,000 vehicles to run on compressed natural gas.

Nigeria featured among the ten largest destinations for the $112 billion in private capital that the World Bank Group mobilised during the fiscal year ending June 2026, a total that climbed from $69 billion recorded in the period before it. Ajay Banga, who leads the World Bank Group, shared the numbers during a television interview held on the eve of the joint annual gatherings of the IMF and the World Bank. The ten countries on the roster were Brazil, India, Turkey, Romania, Argentina, South Africa, Bangladesh, Mexico, Chile, and Nigeria.

Taken together, the World Bank Group's own pool of $123 billion and an additional $112 billion drawn from outside sources pushed the total financing package to $235 billion. Private capital flows into the four regions broke down as follows: roughly $22 billion reached Africa, while Latin America and the Caribbean drew $36.3 billion, Europe and Central Asia pulled in $21.3 billion, and South Asia recorded inflows of $19.2 billion.

Talks with between 30 and 40 nations over potential World Bank support were under way, Banga indicated, as climbing costs for energy and fertiliser put added strain on economies. Banga noted that an initial $25 billion had been set aside by the bank, with that figure potentially reaching $100 billion should conditions worsen.

Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress candidate for the January 2027 presidential contest and a former Vice President, put forward a fuel production subsidy plan that the presidency has since characterised as not feasible. Presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare told reporters that the crude oil volumes available to Nigeria fall well short of what Atiku Abubakar's proposed fuel production subsidy would require to function.

Dare drew on remarks made by Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele during a national television appearance, in which Oyedele put Nigeria's daily crude output at roughly 1.8 million barrels against a population exceeding 200 million people, and noted that once joint-venture and production-sharing obligations are accounted for, the volume of unencumbered crude freely available to the state falls below 700,000 barrels a day. The presidency, responding to the proposal for a blanket targeted production subsidy on crude, argued in a written statement that advancing such a policy without a sufficient unencumbered physical supply to underpin it risked replicating the opacity, round-tripping, and fiscal losses that had characterised Nigeria's oil subsidy arrangements over many years.

A separate statement from the presidency noted that any pledge put forward by those seeking to lead the country ought to rest on a realistic foundation and come with a verifiable plan, and that decisions at every level — including the harder ones — are shaped by that sense of accountability.