Delivering growth that works takes centre stage at NES32

When the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit opens today at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, it will do so amid a rare run of positive macroeconomic data and a blunt warning: positive data is not prosperity.

The theme “Growth That Works: Delivering Jobs, Productivity and Shared Prosperity” captures the moment. For three years, Nigeria has undertaken painful reforms- fuel subsidy removal, exchange-rate unification, fiscal restructuring, and bank recapitalisation to restore stability.

The question now is whether that stability can work for households. “Stabilisation is necessary; it is not sufficient,” Tayo Adeloju, chief executive officer of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, said at a joint briefing with the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.

“The question before Nigeria has therefore shifted from restoring stability to converting it into transformation.”For Adeloju, that conversion is the test of NES #32.
Reforms have improved investor confidence and steadied markets, but growth must now produce tangible benefits for businesses, workers and households.

A better dashboard
The data going into the summit is the strongest in three years and for the first time includes a new tax framework. Real gross domestic product grew 4.43 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, up from 4.23 percent in the same quarter of 2025 and 3.89 percent in the first quarter.

First-half growth averaged 4.16 percent, against 3.68 percent a year earlier. Headline inflation fell to 14.63 percent in September from 15.39 percent in August, the fourth consecutive monthly decline and the lowest since October 2020.

It is down from 20.98 percent in September 2025. Month-on-month price growth slowed to 0.06 percent from 0.71 percent, as food inflation turned negative.

The naira has stabilised around N1,332 to N1,334 per dollar at the official Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, after hitting above N1,600 last year. The spread to the parallel market has narrowed to about N48, with street traders buying at N1,365 and selling at N1,380 as at the time of writing.

External buffers are at record highs. Governor Olayemi Cardoso said gross foreign-exchange reserves hit $55.07 billion on October 8 and $55.12 billion on October 19, an all-time high and above the Central Bank’s $51.04 billion projection for the year.

Read also:https://businessday.ng/real-sector/article/nigerian-manufacturing-job-additions-jump-133-to-81174/

Net reserves, which strip out swaps and forward liabilities, have climbed to $46 billion from $34.8 billion in December 2025.

Oil production, which drives FX liquidity, averaged 1.72 million barrels per day in Q2 from 1.55 million in Q1. And in September, the CBN cut its benchmark rate by 350 basis points to 23 percent, its first major easing in the current cycle.

The new fiscal anchor is tax reform. On Jan. 1, 2026, four Acts took effect: the Nigeria Tax Act, Nigeria Tax Administration Act, Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Act, and Joint Revenue Board Establishment Act, the biggest rewrite of the tax system in decades.

The impact is already visible. The Presidency said tax-to-GDP improved from 10.3 percent to 13 percent, and total collections rose from N12.3 trillion in 2023 to N28.3 trillion in 2025.
For NESG, the test is whether the new revenue translates to productivity, not just collection.

The household test
Adeloju said the recovery is real but incomplete. “A manufacturer in Onitsha does not eat GDP growth for breakfast,” he said. “The factory pays diesel, electricity, wages, transport, taxes, interest and foreign-exchange costs.

Nominal GDP rose 18.43 percent in Q2 to N119.29 trillion, but real growth was 4.43 percent. With population growing about 2.5 percent a year, output per person grew less than 2 percent, which is far below the 8 to 10 percent sustained growth economists say Nigeria needs.

“The task is not to grow faster, but to grow differently, raising productivity and creating jobs at scale,” Adeloju said.

Pillars for growth that work
NES #32 is anchored on three sub-themes: Scale Nigeria, Invest Nigeria and Secure Nigeria.

Scale Nigeria is about geography. NESG said Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt “concentrate the bulk of formal economic activity, financial flows, and investment,” while large parts of the country remain marginalised.

“Scaling Nigeria’s growth is therefore not simply a redistribution exercise; it is a strategy for increasing the total productive capacity of the nation,” said Ayanyinka Ayanlowo, head of strategic communication and advocacy at NESG.

The prescription is for states to compete “not through unsustainable fiscal concessions but through the quality of their governance.” It cited rice in Kebbi and Niger, horticulture and cold-chain in Plateau, cocoa and tourism in Cross River, and manufacturing in Kano.

Invest Nigeria is about transmission. “Economic transformation does not happen by chance. It is built on investment,” NESG said. Despite record reserves and rising tax receipts, investment remains below what a population heading to 250 million people requires.

Secure Nigeria links security to economics. “Without security, every other goal, be it job creation, industrialisation, shared prosperity or subnational growth becomes either impossible or profoundly more costly to achieve,” NESG said.

For Adeloju and the 2,000 delegates expected over the next two days, success will not be measured in communiques. It will be measured in whether 4.43 percent growth and N21.6 trillion in taxes can finally create jobs and work for households.