$1trn economy: ACCI seeks more stakeholder engagement

The First Deputy President of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Prof Adesoli Adesugba, is seeking intensified stakeholder engagement towards achieving the $1 trillion economy target set by the Federal Government.

Speaking at the 20th anniversary of the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN) in Abuja, Adesugba said stabilisation of the economy has been substantially achieved, adding that transformation has not yet begun at the scale the target requires. “The gap between the two is where policymakers, stakeholders and the media must now concentrate their energies.”

The First Deputy President of the ACCI explained that growth in the second quarter of 2026 reached 4.43 per cent, lifting first-half growth to 4.16 per cent, and the Federal Ministry of Finance reports that 27 economic subsectors grew above three per cent in the quarter, compared with 23 a year earlier.

“Headline inflation has fallen for successive months to 14.63 per cent in September, more than six percentage points below its level a year ago, and core inflation stands at 12.95 per cent. On the strength of that disinflation, the Central Bank reset the Monetary Policy Rate from 26.5 to 23 per cent in September, describing the move as an operational realignment intended to restore the policy rate as its primary signal.

“The external position is the strongest in a generation. Gross reserves of $55.25 billion, the highest in eighteen years, cover roughly eleven months of imports. The naira has traded within a narrow band around ₦1,330 to the dollar, and the gap between the official and parallel markets has compressed to a few per cent, a remarkable contrast with the distortions of 2023. Crude oil production, excluding condensates, has met the OPEC quota for four consecutive months.”

Adesugba said the International Monetary Fund now places Nigeria among the ten largest contributors to global real GDP growth in 2026. “These are genuine achievements, purchased at considerable social cost, and they deserve acknowledgement.

“Yet beneath these aggregates sit four facts that should temper any premature celebration. The first is that long-term investment has not followed short-term money. Capital importation reached $10.37 billion in the first quarter of 2026, an increase of almost 84 per cent, but foreign direct investment contributed only $135.08 million, or 1.3 per cent of the total.

“The banking sector absorbed nearly 73 per cent of inflows, manufacturing about 1.5 per cent and agriculture barely a third of one per cent. For the whole of 2025, FDI amounted to just $923 million. Portfolio capital stabilises the currency; direct investment builds factories and jobs. We are attracting the former in abundance and the latter in trickles.

“Nigeria’s grid-connected plants have an installed capacity of 13,625 megawatts, yet average available capacity was 4,758 megawatts in August 2026 and fell as low as 4,384 megawatts in February, roughly a third of installed capacity.

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“No economy of 220 million people has ever approached a trillion dollars on five gigawatts of grid power. The third fact is the structure of growth. Services account for about 57 per cent of real output, while industrial growth slowed to 3.96 per cent in the second quarter from 7.46 per cent a year earlier. Manufacturing’s improvement to 3.24 per cent growth is welcome, but it remains well short of the double-digit expansion that industrialising economies have historically sustained.”

The professor further explained that the World Bank estimates that 63 per cent of Nigerians, about 140 million people, were living below the national poverty line in 2025.

“Its October 2026 update reports that poverty has stabilised for the first time since 2019 and projects a gradual decline as growth outpaces population, but food inflation of nearly 20 per cent continues to erode household purchasing power, and rural and northern communities remain furthest behind.”

He emphasised that a trillion-dollar economy that leaves the majority poor would be neither stable nor legitimate, charging policymakers and stakeholders to build more on productive investment for long-term growth.