Nigeria’s much-touted 4.43 per cent economic growth in the second quarter of 2026 has come under scrutiny, with the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) warning that the headline figure masks deep structural weaknesses, poor capital budget implementation and declining productivity across critical sectors of the economy.

The CSJ, in its review of the Q2 2026 Gross Domestic Product report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the growth, although the highest recorded under the President Bola Tinubu administration, remains grossly inadequate to lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty or place the country on the path to becoming a $1 trillion economy.

According to the organisation, Nigeria’s economy grew by 3.04 per cent in 2023, 3.38 per cent in 2024 and 3.87 per cent in 2025 before rising to 4.43 per cent in Q2 2026.

But CSJ argued that the improvement should not be celebrated in isolation, given that Nigeria’s population is growing by about 2.4 per cent annually, leaving only a narrow margin of growth in per capita terms.

It warned that Nigeria requires sustained annual growth of at least seven per cent to meet the aspirations of Vision 2050, while much higher growth would be required to achieve the government’s ambition of transforming the economy into a $1 trillion economy.

The group also raised questions over the quality of the growth, noting that manufacturing, the sector expected to drive mass employment, exports and value addition, was conspicuously absent from the top 10 contributors to Q2 growth.

The top contributors were trade, crop production, real estate, telecommunications and information services, livestock, crude petroleum and natural gas, construction, financial institutions, food, beverage and tobacco, and public administration.

At the heart of the CSJ’s accountability concerns is the implementation of capital expenditure by the Federal Government.

The organisation said poor release and implementation of capital votes contained in the 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 Federal Budgets had denied the economy the stimulus required to achieve significantly higher growth.

It estimated that more than N70 trillion in capital investments was provided on a pro-rata basis across the four budgets, arguing that full deployment of the funds could have triggered substantially stronger economic activity.

“Capital budget implementation at federal and subnational levels should be prioritised,” CSJ said, warning that the failure to translate budgetary allocations into actual infrastructure and productive investment was undermining economic expansion.

The group argued that effective deployment of the funds could have made factories more competitive, increased agricultural productivity, improved the ease of doing business, generated jobs and expanded government revenues.

The implication, according to the CSJ analysis, is that Nigeria may be experiencing growth without sufficiently deploying the public resources that should accelerate that growth.

The manufacturing sector emerged as one of the biggest red flags in the review.

CSJ said manufacturing accounted for only 7.72 per cent of real GDP, compared with about 11 per cent in South Africa, 14 per cent in Egypt and 10 per cent in Ghana.

More troubling, it said, manufacturing declined by 15.85 per cent quarter-on-quarter in Q2.

Several major subsectors also recorded sharp contractions.

Motor vehicle assembly plunged by 43.01 per cent, while textile, apparel and footwear contracted by 38.6 per cent. Cement declined by 21 per cent, while food, beverage and tobacco fell by 8.47 per cent.

CSJ warned that the Federal Government’s new tariff policy could further weaken local automobile production if cheaper imported vehicles are granted greater access to the Nigerian market without adequate protection for domestic manufacturers.

The organisation said manufacturing should account for at least 20 per cent of GDP and more than 30 per cent of exports if Nigeria is to achieve sustainable industrial development.

It identified high interest rates, poor infrastructure and logistics, unreliable electricity, rising energy costs, limited access to foreign exchange, dumping and cheap imports, and weak consumer purchasing power as major constraints.

The review also exposed the continuing contradiction in Nigeria’s oil economy.

Crude oil and natural gas contributed only 4.16 per cent of GDP, yet the oil sector remains responsible for a disproportionately large share of government revenue and foreign exchange earnings.

Crude production rose to approximately 1.72 million barrels per day, compared with 1.63 million bpd in 2025 and 1.55 million bpd in Q1 2026.

But CSJ noted that Nigeria produced an average of 2.17 million barrels per day in 2015, highlighting the depth of the production decline over the past decade.

Despite its relatively small contribution to GDP, oil accounted for nearly 30 per cent of federally collected revenue in 2025 and more than 75 per cent of foreign exchange earnings, according to the review.

CSJ therefore called for production to be increased to at least three million barrels per day, alongside greater domestic refining and petrochemical processing to capture more value before crude is exported.

The mining sector was another major accountability concern.

Although Nigeria possesses extensive deposits of lithium, gold, iron ore, coal, bitumen, limestone and other minerals, CSJ said non-oil mining contributes only about 0.14 per cent of GDP after crude petroleum and natural gas are excluded from the broader mining and quarrying sector.

Even more alarming, the group said solid minerals contribute less than one per cent of federally collected public revenue and generate relatively little employment.

Yet government projections indicate that the sector could generate more than $27 billion as early as 2025, with the potential to double that value by 2050.

CSJ also highlighted the link between illegal mining and insecurity, particularly in parts of the North-West, where proceeds from illicit extraction of minerals such as gold have reportedly been associated with organised violence, banditry and terrorism.

The huge gap between the country’s mineral wealth and actual economic returns, therefore, raises questions about regulation, revenue collection, security and the government’s ability to formalise the sector.

Agriculture accounted for 26.15 per cent of real GDP in Q2, growing by 4.39 per cent year-on-year.

But CSJ said the sector’s large contribution should not obscure its poor productivity.

With agriculture employing more than 40 per cent of the population, the organisation argued that Nigeria should be generating substantially higher output through better yields, mechanisation, irrigation, research, extension services and security.

It identified insecurity as a major barrier preventing farmers from returning to their farms and called for stronger links between agricultural research institutions and farmers.

CSJ also criticised policies that liberalise agricultural imports while withdrawing protection for domestic producers, arguing that such policies effectively transfer subsidies from Nigerian farmers to foreign agricultural producers.

Nigeria’s power crisis also featured prominently in the assessment.

The electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning sector contributed just 1.05 per cent of real GDP and recorded annual growth of only 0.87 per cent.

CSJ noted that Nigeria has an installed electricity generation capacity of about 13,000MW, but less than 5,000MW is generated and distributed daily.

The group contrasted this with South Africa, with a population of about 65.5 million and installed capacity of approximately 62,700MW, and Egypt, with about 120.5 million people and 59,000MW installed capacity.

Against Nigeria’s population of more than 230 million, CSJ said the electricity deficit represents a fundamental constraint on industrialisation, employment and productivity.

With electricity now open to greater state-level participation under constitutional reforms, the organisation called for a fundamental rethink of electricity policy to achieve universal access to affordable and reliable power.

The stark message from the review is that Nigeria’s 4.43 per cent growth is less a sign of economic take-off than a warning about how much potential remains unrealised. With manufacturing contracting, transport plunging, electricity remaining severely inadequate, mining contributing almost nothing to public revenue and agriculture operating far below its potential, the question is increasingly not whether Nigeria is growing, but why, after trillions of naira in public budgets, it is still growing so slowly.