Sanusi, Peterside, Adesina, Tijani, Oteh: Nigeria Must Move Beyond 4% Growth to Tackle Poverty

By: Michael Mike

Emir of Kano warns that GDP growth means little without improved living standards; Peterside blames corruption, political patronage for weak investment; Adesina urges investment in young people; Tijani identifies AI as key to productivity; Oteh calls for inclusive capital markets

Nigeria must move beyond celebrating modest economic growth and pursue a more ambitious growth target of 10 per cent, while ensuring that economic reforms translate into better living conditions for citizens, prominent Nigerian leaders and economic experts have said.

They spoke on Tuesday at the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference, with theme: “Leadership for a Prosperous Future,” where they examined Nigeria’s economic challenges, the need for stronger institutions, investment mobilisation, technological innovation and the development of its human capital.

The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, cautioned that improvements in headline economic indicators should not be mistaken for improved welfare, insisting that the ultimate test of economic policy must be its impact on households.

Sanusi acknowledged that some macroeconomic indicators had improved and that the economy was recording growth of about 4.5 per cent. However, he argued that aggregate GDP figures did not adequately reflect the economic realities facing ordinary Nigerians.

He said the decline in GDP per capita since 2023, influenced by economic growth and currency depreciation, raised questions about whether the benefits of reform were reaching the wider population.

According to him, economic performance should be assessed not only through GDP growth, foreign reserves and other macroeconomic indicators, but also through improvements in education, healthcare, nutrition, employment, household incomes and poverty reduction.

The former Central Bank of Nigeria governor also cautioned against excessive reliance on portfolio inflows, which he said could be volatile and influenced by high interest rates and attractive short-term returns.

He stressed that sustainable economic progress required structural reforms that went beyond the removal of subsidies and changes to foreign exchange policy.

Sanusi called for investment in infrastructure, stronger accountability, transparency, reliable economic data and policies capable of expanding productive opportunities across the country.

He also warned that perceived regional imbalances in appointments, particularly in sensitive areas of national security, could undermine national cohesion, urging the government to pay greater attention to fairness and inclusion.

While acknowledging that the country’s economic situation was not entirely bleak, he maintained that reforms would have limited meaning if citizens continued to experience worsening living conditions.

Similarly, businessman and former Chairman of Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Atedo Peterside, said Nigeria should not be satisfied with economic growth of about four per cent when the country needed to grow at 10 per cent to create sufficient jobs, expand businesses and improve living standards.

Peterside identified weak investment as one of the major constraints to Nigeria’s economic expansion, arguing that the country could not achieve the required growth without a significant increase in investment as a proportion of GDP.

He blamed political patronage, corruption, regulatory harassment and the absence of a level playing field for discouraging investors and weakening the private sector.

According to him, businesses, particularly small and medium-scale enterprises, are often subjected to arbitrary demands and harassment by government regulators, making it difficult for them to operate, expand and create jobs.

He warned that public procurement had become a major avenue for the diversion of public resources, with inflated contract costs undermining the value of government expenditure.

Peterside described the abuse of procurement processes as a form of legalised theft, arguing that money meant for infrastructure and public services was being lost through inflated contracts and corrupt practices.

He said Nigeria needed to confront corruption and state capture if it hoped to attract the scale of domestic and foreign investment required to transform the economy.

The businessman also called for economic reforms to be implemented fairly, warning that citizens should not be made to bear the entire burden of adjustment while those benefiting from political connections and public resources remained insulated from its consequences.

He urged the government to strengthen institutions, protect businesses from arbitrary interference and ensure that public appointments and the allocation of national resources were guided by merit and national interest.

Former President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, focused on the continent’s demographic advantage, arguing that Africa’s growing young population should be treated as an economic asset rather than a burden.

Adesina said population growth alone could not guarantee prosperity, stressing that the real advantage lay in building the capabilities of young people and connecting them to productive opportunities.

He noted that Africa’s population was projected to account for about a quarter of the world’s population by 2050, with young people making up a substantial proportion of the continent’s population.

He said the demographic trend presented an enormous opportunity, but warned that it could become a source of economic and social pressure if governments failed to invest adequately in education, healthcare, nutrition, technical skills and access to finance.

According to him, young Africans must be equipped not only to seek employment but also to create businesses, develop technologies and provide solutions to the continent’s challenges.

Adesina emphasised the need to expand digital and artificial intelligence capabilities, insisting that Africa should not remain merely a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere.

He called for stronger investment in human capital, affordable financing and infrastructure that would enable young people to turn their ideas into viable enterprises and productive ventures.

Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said Nigeria’s ability to convert knowledge and technology into productive economic activity would determine its future prosperity.

Tijani argued that natural resources alone could not guarantee national wealth, explaining that prosperity depended on how effectively a country applied knowledge, technology and technical expertise to the resources available to it.

Using the parable of the talents, he said countries that developed the capacity to improve and multiply the value of their resources would achieve greater prosperity than those that merely possessed them.

He cited the liberalisation of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector and the introduction of GSM services in 2001 as an example of how deliberate government policy, private investment and competition could transform an industry and create wider economic opportunities.

According to him, artificial intelligence represents another major productivity frontier, but Nigeria must first develop the capacity to absorb emerging technologies and apply them to its own economic needs.

He identified connectivity, computing and data infrastructure, skills and research, innovation capacity, and effective policies and institutions as the foundations required to build that capacity.

The minister disclosed that the Federal Government was pursuing an approximately 90,000-kilometre open-access fibre-optic network, backed by an estimated $2bn investment, to expand broadband connectivity across the country.

He also highlighted plans to strengthen shared computing infrastructure and develop a Nigerian large language model capable of supporting local languages, including Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, as well as Nigerian-accented English.

Tijani said the government’s 3 Million Technical Talent programme was designed to build a pool of skilled Nigerians capable of participating in the global digital economy, while the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy would provide a framework for the responsible adoption and development of AI.

He also referred to the establishment of an AI community of practice, with initial support of $150,000, to encourage collaboration and practical application of the technology.

To illustrate the economic consequences of failing to adopt technology, Tijani compared agricultural productivity in Nigeria with that of countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

He said Nigerian maize yields were generally between 1.5 and 2.5 tonnes per hectare, compared with yields of about 10 tonnes per hectare in the South American countries, attributing part of the difference to the application of precision technologies and improved farming practices.

He urged businesses to take advantage of the digital infrastructure and other foundations being developed by government, stressing that the private sector must translate those investments into products, services, jobs and economic value.

Convener of the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference, Arunma Oteh, called for an ecosystem approach to economic development, arguing that sustainable growth required governments, businesses, investors, financial institutions and citizens to work together.

Oteh, a former Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said domestic capital markets had an important role to play in mobilising the resources needed to finance development and expand economic opportunities.

She emphasised the importance of increasing retail participation in capital markets, noting that broader participation would allow more Nigerians to invest in productive enterprises and share in the country’s economic growth.

She also highlighted the potential of pension funds to support long-term investment and democratise wealth creation, provided appropriate safeguards and investment frameworks were in place.

Oteh said Africa’s youthful population made investment in education, skills and employment particularly urgent, noting that about 70 per cent of the continent’s population was under the age of 30.

She argued that development efforts should not be excessively centralised, stressing that decentralisation could improve service delivery and allow communities to respond more effectively to local needs.

Using electricity supply in Aba, Abia State, as an example, she pointed to the possibilities offered by decentralised approaches to managing infrastructure and delivering essential services.

Oteh also stressed the importance of creating an enabling environment for businesses through reliable infrastructure, access to finance, regulatory certainty and a skilled workforce.

She cited the reported broad international participation in the Dangote Refinery’s proposed public offering as an indication of the potential of capital markets to attract investors beyond Nigeria’s borders.

The interventions converged on a central message: Nigeria’s economic challenge is not simply to record higher growth figures, but to build an economy in which investment, technology, human capital and accountable institutions combine to generate jobs, raise productivity and improve the welfare of citizens.

The speakers maintained that achieving such an outcome would require more than isolated policy announcements. It would depend on sustained reforms, a stronger private sector, effective public institutions and deliberate investment in the capabilities of Nigerians.

Sanusi, Peterside, Adesina, Tijani, Oteh: Nigeria Must Move Beyond 4% Growth to Tackle Poverty