Nigeria must achieve sustained GDP growth of about 7 percent if it hopes to meaningfully reduce poverty and raise the living standards of its citizens, says the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.
Edun made the comment while responding to questions at a press briefing following the conclusion of the 2024 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Washington, D.C.
While acknowledging that Nigeria’s economy is currently growing at an average rate of 3.4 percent in 2025, with the latest quarterly figure recorded at 3.84 percent, Edun stressed that this pace is insufficient to lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
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“Unless we get to about 7% growth, we’re not going to substantially reduce poverty and improve the life of Nigerians,” he said. “That is the target and commitment of this administration.”
However, the optimism expressed by the minister stands in contrast to projections from the IMF and World Bank. According to the IMF’s latest forecast, Nigeria’s GDP is expected to grow by only 3.0 percent this year. The World Bank’s outlook is only marginally higher at 3.6 percent. These projections highlight a major gap between the government’s ambitions and the country’s economic reality.
More critically, Nigeria, once Africa’s largest economy, has now dropped to the fourth largest on the continent, falling behind South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria, according to IMF data. The decline in relative economic size underscores the severity of Nigeria’s growth challenges. Against this backdrop, analysts argue that to reverse this trend and meaningfully tackle poverty, Nigeria would need to double its current growth rate — a monumental task given the country’s present economic trajectory.
The World Bank has already warned that Nigeria’s poverty crisis is set to deepen, with millions more expected to slip into poverty by 2026 if urgent measures are not taken. In a recent report, the World Bank revealed that Nigeria now accounts for 15 percent of the world’s poorest people. It stressed the need for policies that promote inclusive growth, enhance food security, and strengthen social protection systems — areas that mirror the priorities Edun highlighted at the Washington briefing.
To reach the 7 percent growth rate, Edun outlined several strategic focus areas. He stressed the importance of boosting agricultural productivity, expanding the nation’s digital infrastructure, supporting young entrepreneurs through e-commerce initiatives, and improving access to finance across all business segments. He noted that structural reforms, particularly in the financial sector, are being prioritized, with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) working alongside regulators to remove capital access bottlenecks and stimulate broader economic activity.
Edun also spoke extensively about the administration’s renewed focus on social protection programs, aimed at shielding the country’s most vulnerable citizens from the harsh effects of economic reforms. He said the direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has been revamped to ensure monthly digital payments are made to verified individuals through their bank accounts or mobile wallets, using biometric registration linked to the National Identification Number (NIN) for greater transparency.
Currently, about one million individuals are enrolled in the program, but efforts are ongoing to enroll three million more every month. The national social register, which is projected to eventually represent around 20 million households, is being expanded and verified digitally to allow swift government intervention during future economic shocks.
Even with these efforts, analysts, and economists believe that attaining a 7 percent growth rate anytime soon may be unrealistic. Many argue that Nigeria’s current economic fundamentals — characterized by soaring inflation, weak industrial output, high unemployment, insecurity, policy inconsistency, and infrastructure deficits — make such aggressive growth targets extremely difficult to achieve.
Furthermore, economists have pointed out that while President Bola Tinubu’s administration has embarked on reforms such as the removal of fuel subsidies and the unification of exchange rates, the immediate fallout from these policies — rising cost of living, weakened consumer demand, and declining purchasing power — is likely to slow growth in the short-to-medium term rather than accelerate it.
With GDP growth projected to hover between 3.0 and 3.6 percent, the gap between aspiration and reality appears stark. The World Bank’s warning that millions more Nigerians could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2026 adds to the growing pressure on the government to not just implement reforms, but to find ways to cushion the devastating social impacts they are causing.
Ultimately, while Edun’s remarks reflect an aspirational vision for Nigeria’s future, the road to 7 percent growth will demand far more than promises. Economists have noted that it will require consistent, well-coordinated policy execution, massive private sector participation, drastic improvements in infrastructure and security, and a social protection system capable of absorbing the shocks of economic adjustments.
