Nigeria’s 3.89% GDP Growth Fails to Lift Living Standards Despite Economic Gains – MoneyAfrica

Nigeria’s economy recorded a 3.89% year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2026, but fresh analysis from investment research firm MoneyAfrica suggests the improvement is still not strong enough to ease widespread hardship or meaningfully raise living standards. The report, based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), shows that while the economy remains resilient, its momentum is slowing at a time when households are struggling with inflation and rising costs of living.

According to the NBS figures, the 3.89% growth marks a slight decline from the 4.07% recorded in the previous quarter of 2025. MoneyAfrica linked this slowdown mainly to weaker performance in agriculture and industry, two sectors that remain critical to employment and food security. Agriculture dipped to 3.2% from 4.0%, while industrial growth eased to 3.5% from 3.88%, signaling a broad but mild cooling across productive sectors.

The non-oil sector, which drives most of Nigeria’s jobs and daily economic activity, also lost momentum, growing at 3.94% compared to 3.99% in the previous quarter. However, not all segments slowed down—ICT, financial services, trade, and entertainment stood out as bright spots. In particular, the ICT sector surged by 10.98%, reinforcing the growing influence of Nigeria’s digital economy in an otherwise uneven recovery.

Oil performance, however, weakened significantly, with growth dropping to 2.57% from 6.79% due to lower crude output, which fell to 1.55 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, oil refining emerged as the fastest-growing sub-sector, expanding by 37.47%, though its contribution to overall GDP remained minimal. MoneyAfrica also raised concerns about whether current data fully captures the impact of major new players like the Dangote Refinery on national output figures.

Despite these pockets of strength, MoneyAfrica warned that Nigeria’s current growth rate is still far below what is needed to improve living standards in a meaningful way. The firm stressed that a growth level of around 4% is insufficient to generate the jobs, income growth, and purchasing power recovery required after years of inflation and currency depreciation, arguing instead that sustained double-digit growth would be necessary to deliver real economic relief for citizens.

source: The sun