By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo<\/p>\n
ABUJA, Jan 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Nigeria has entered a phase of economic consolidation after two years of reforms that helped steady inflation, stabilise the currency and lift investor confidence, \u200dFinance Minister Wale Edun said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Since taking office in 2023, President Bola Tinubu has rolled out Nigeria\u2019s most ambitious economic overhaul in decades by ending costly fuel and energy subsidies, twice devaluing the naira currency and changing the tax system to boost public finances.<\/p>\n
The measures unleashed Nigeria\u2019s worst cost-of-living \u200ccrisis in a generation but set the stage \u200cfor improving macroeconomic indicators the government says are now taking hold. The country\u2019s major workers\u2019 union has said that Tinubu\u2019s reform\u2011driven policies hit its members hard, with inflation eroding incomes and pushing millions of people into financial \u200bhardship.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the launch of a national economic outlook report for the new year, Edun said Nigeria had reached a turning point \u200dafter a turbulent transition marked by subsidy \u200bremoval and exchange-rate unification.<\/p>\n
Inflation had eased to 14.45% in \u200bNovember from 33.18% a year earlier, while the naira firmed below 1,500 \u200dper dollar, Edun said, adding that growth averaged 3.78% in the first nine months of 2025 and external reserves rose to $45.5\u202fbillion. The stock market also jumped nearly 60% year\u2011on\u2011year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria cannot afford to pause or retreat. The task now is to turn stability into sustained, \u200dinclusive and job-rich growth,\u201d Edun said.<\/p>\n
He forecast 4.68% growth in 2026, with inflation averaging 16.5% and the naira stabilising at around 1,400 per dollar, and \u200dsought to calm concerns \u200dover Nigeria\u2019s 152 trillion naira public debt, saying \u200bthe jump reflected greater transparency and exchange-rate adjustments \u200brather than \u2060new borrowing.<\/p>\n
He said 30 trillion naira reflected unrecorded \u200ccentral bank \u201cWays and Means\u201d support and 49 trillion naira came from forex revaluation. Even so, he said Nigeria\u2019s debt-to-GDP ratio sits at 36.1%, below regional and global averages.<\/p>\n
Reforms this year will target digitalising revenue collection, stricter treasury controls and pro-poor tax measures to cushion low-income households.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo, editing \u2060by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo ABUJA, Jan 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Nigeria has entered a phase of economic consolidation after two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[122],"class_list":{"0":"post-25862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nigeria","8":"tag-nigeria"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}