The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has warned that any attempt to reverse ongoing economic reforms could drag Nigeria’s growth back to crisis-era levels of about two per cent, threatening recent gains in macroeconomic stability.

Speaking during the NESG quarterly media engagement held in Abuja on Friday, the Head of Research, Dr Joseph Ogebe, said, “What we see is that growth could go to around two to three per cent if the policies are being reversed.”

Ogebe noted that while reforms implemented over the past 30 months had begun to yield results, reversing them would worsen fiscal pressures, weaken investment, and deepen poverty.

He explained that Nigeria’s growth had improved from about 2.5–2.9 per cent in 2023 to about 3.9 per cent, with modest gains in per capita income, adding that inflation had also eased from about 40 per cent in 2023 to 15.06 per cent in February 2026.

Despite these improvements, he said the gains remained largely at the macro level and had yet to translate into tangible benefits for citizens.

He described 2026 as a critical turning point, noting that “this year, 2026, is a make-or-break year” for consolidating reforms and ensuring that macroeconomic stability translates into improved livelihoods.

Ogebe stressed that Nigeria must move beyond its current growth level to at least 6 per cent to significantly reduce poverty, warning that growth remained narrow and driven mainly by a few sectors such as finance, ICT, and oil and gas, while job-creating sectors like agriculture and manufacturing lagged behind.

He further warned against growing calls for policy reversal amid global uncertainties, noting that past subsidy regimes forced the government to borrow to finance consumption rather than development.

“We were actually borrowing to pay for the subsidy. There was no money to spend on capital and development projects. That is not where we should go now,” he said.

Also speaking, the Chief Economist and Director of Research at NESG, Olusegun Omisakin, said Nigeria was currently in a consolidation phase following a near-collapse of the economy in recent years. He noted that while reforms such as subsidy removal had generated mixed outcomes, reversing them could worsen inefficiencies in the system.

“If today we announce that the subsidy should be reversed, you are still going to see what we used to see before… the government has no money for capital development… a lot of inefficiency in the system,” Omisakin said.

He added that reforms were not automatic in delivering results, stressing that outcomes depended largely on institutional efficiency, transparency, and strategic spending.

According to him, the focus should be on strengthening systems rather than abandoning reforms due to short-term pressures. “The attention should be towards creating a system that makes reforms work rather than reversing systems that we are not seeing working for now,” he said, citing examples of countries such as Ghana, where policy reversals worsened economic conditions.

Omisakin also pointed to improvements in foreign exchange access and capital inflows as early signs of recovery, but cautioned that decisions taken at this stage would determine the country’s long-term trajectory.

Also speaking, the Head of Public Affairs and Public Policy Development at NESG, Seun Ojo, said sustaining reforms beyond political cycles was critical to achieving inclusive growth.

She explained that discussions at the 31st Nigerian Economic Summit focused on translating macroeconomic gains into productivity, resilience, and fairness.

Ojo added that the summit identified key priorities, including industrialisation, infrastructure, investment, inclusion, and institutional reforms, stressing the need for policy coherence and disciplined implementation across government agencies.

She further noted that restoring public trust through transparency and citizen engagement would be essential for sustaining reforms and delivering long-term economic transformation.

The National Bureau of Statistics earlier disclosed that Nigeria’s economy grew by 4.07 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting improved economic performance compared with the 3.76 per cent growth recorded in the corresponding period of 2024, according to the Q4 2025 Gross Domestic Product report.

On a full-year basis, the economy recorded 3.87 per cent growth in 2025, representing an improvement over the 3.38 per cent growth achieved in 2024.

The growth surpassed the projection of the International Monetary Fund, which anticipated that Nigeria’s real gross domestic product would grow by 3.4 per cent in 2025 in its July 2025 World Economic Outlook report.