Nigeria’s economic recovery is gaining strength, but improved revenues and macroeconomic indicators have yet to translate into stronger social outcomes for citizens, the Federal Government and World Bank have said.

Meanwhile, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has sarcastically “congratulated” the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, for acknowledging that the administration’s economic reforms increased poverty and hardship among Nigerians.

Bwala had acknowledged that the administration’s economic reforms increased poverty but insisted that the government had made significant progress since introducing the measures.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, stated yesterday at the launch of the latest World Bank Nigeria Development Update (NDU) in Abuja, that macroeconomic stability was only a foundation for sustainable growth, not the destination.

“The fact that the economy is growing does not mean that we have arrived. We must avoid complacency,” Oyedele said.

He pointed out that the government wanted economic growth that would create jobs, raise incomes and improve living standards, rather than simply produce higher headline figures.

“We want growth, but not growth for the sake of it. We want growth that creates jobs,” he said.

The World Bank report, entitled ‘Beyond the Federal Purse: How Higher Revenues Reshaped State Priorities’, showed that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 4.2 per cent in the first half of 2026, compared with 3.9 per cent in the corresponding period of 2025 and 3.5 per cent in 2024.

The bank projected average economic growth of 4.4 per cent between 2026 and 2028.

However, inflation remains a major pressure on households. Headline inflation fell from 27.6 per cent in January 2025 to 15.2 per cent in December 2025, but disinflation stalled in 2026 amid higher fuel and food prices, with food inflation reaching 19.6 per cent in August.

The Bretton Woods institution attributed the setback partly to higher oil prices following the Middle East conflict and seasonal food pressures.

Oyedele said the government’s ultimate target remained single-digit inflation, while the World Bank projected that inflation could fall to about 12 per cent by 2028.

Nigeria’s external position also strengthened, with the current account surplus rising from $8.6 billion (6.7 per cent of GDP) in the first half of 2025 to about $12 billion (7.1 per cent) in the first half of 2026.

Bwala spoke on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Wednesday while defending the reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration since it assumed office in May 2023.

The reforms include removing the petrol subsidy and unifying the foreign exchange market, which triggered a sharp rise in the cost of living, with households and businesses facing higher transportation, logistics and production costs.

The presidential aide acknowledged that the reforms’ immediate impact was painful and that more Nigerians fell into poverty in the process. He, however, argued that the hardship was an unavoidable consequence of economic restructuring.

He said: “Please let it be clear, even to the opposition, the reason you have this number of poor people and some of these doomsday analytics that people are giving is that we undertook a reform.

“There is no part of the world where, if you start a reform like that, there will not be discomfort. More people went down to poverty, acknowledged, but since the reform started till today, we have made marked progress, which is what we have spent the last three years talking to Nigerians about.”

According to him, one cannot discount that, though there are quite a number of our population who are poor, the administration has made progress.

Publicity Secretary of the ACF, Prof. Tukur Mohammed-Baba, made the remark during an interview on Arise Television’s ‘News Day’ yesterday, said: “Let’s first of all be very happy and congratulate Bwala. Until now, one would expect that whenever he comes on TV or appears on social media, it is to deny.

“But I think we are making progress since his admitting fundamentally that the reforms have brought untold hardships on Nigerians. Most especially, he has not denied that poverty has been rising.”

The ACF spokesman said multidimensional poverty remained widespread in the country, while criticizing the administration’s attempts to justify the hardship as a temporary consequence of economic reforms.