Nigeria’s economic recovery is gaining momentum, but growth remains well below the 6 percent-plus pace recorded in the early 2010s. Real GDP grew 4.43 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2026, lifting first-half growth to 4.16 percent from 3.68 percent in 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The improvement is significant. But for an economy with a population growing by about 2.1 percent a year, it also leaves only a modest gain in output per person. Bismarck Rewane, chief executive of Financial Derivatives Company, said that distinction matters because Nigeria is now growing faster than its population. “Technically, it means that Nigerians should be getting richer because of the increase in output,” Rewane said in an interview with Channels Television.
That is the optimistic reading of the latest figures. The more difficult question is whether the current pace represents a genuine acceleration or simply a recovery from years of weak growth. The 4.16 percent first-half growth rate is well above the average performance recorded during Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years in office, when growth averaged roughly 1 percent annually and the economy endured two recessions, in 2016 and 2020.
