Nigeria’s economic story in 2025 has not been defined by a single reform or headline moment. It has been shaped by sequencing, a deliberate effort to stabilise the macroeconomy, restore institutional credibility and align security, fiscal, and market policy towards growth.
At the centre of that sequencing has been the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, whose framing of security, capital mobilisation, and reform discipline has increasingly influenced how investors perceive Nigeria.
The year began with the government focused on repairing the analytical foundations of economic planning.
In early 2025, Nigeria completed a long-awaited rebasing of its Gross Domestic Product to a 2019 base year, a technical exercise led by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that expanded the measured contribution of services, ICT, and the informal economy.
According to the NBS, the rebasing placed nominal GDP at about ₦372.8 trillion, equivalent to roughly $240–250 billion, giving policymakers and investors a clearer picture of economic structure and scale.
That reset mattered. It framed the fiscal choices that followed, including tighter expenditure controls, tax administration reforms, and coordination with monetary authorities to slow inflation and stabilise the foreign-exchange market.
By the fourth quarter of 2025, inflation which had exceeded 24 percent earlier in the year, began a steady descent, reaching about 14.45 percent by November 2025.
Foreign reserves strengthened toward $47 billion, reinforcing external buffers and signalling improved balance-of-payments management, trends noted by multilateral institutions including the World Bank and Afreximbank in their 2025 outlooks for Nigeria.
By mid-year, the reform narrative shifted from stabilisation to confidence, and nowhere was that clearer than in Nigeria’s capital markets.
The Nigerian Exchange closed 2025 as one of Africa’s strongest-performing bourses, with the All-Share Index up about 49 per cent year-to-date by late December.
Total market capitalisation across equities, debt, and ETFs rose to nearly ₦150 trillion, driven by strong earnings, bank recapitalisation, and new listings, according to the NGX Group chairman, Umaru Kwairanga.
Banking reform was pivotal. As part of recapitalisation efforts aimed at strengthening credit transmission and financial stability, Nigerian banks raised an estimated ₦2.5 trillion in fresh capital by December 2025 through rights issues, private placements, and public offers, according to NGX filings and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approvals.
The capital raising reinforced balance sheets and helped drive the market rally, underscoring the link between prudential reform and investor confidence.
Debt markets told a similar story. Between April and October 2025, companies raised over ₦753 billion through commercial paper issuances to finance short-term working capital needs across manufacturing, energy, and agriculture.
“These figures are not just numbers; they represent confidence in our regulatory framework and the resilience of our market architecture,” said Emomotimi Agama, director-general of the SEC, in a public briefing on capital-raising approvals. Landmark transactions, including a ₦500 billion climate-linked SPV and a ₦200 billion Elektron Finance bond, pointed to growing appetite for infrastructure and sustainable finance.
Corporate earnings reinforced the macro signal. MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, one of the Exchange’s largest listed companies, delivered one of the year’s most striking turnarounds.
By the first nine months of 2025, the telecoms giant reported revenues of ₦3.73 trillion, up 57 per cent year-on-year, and profit after tax of about ₦750 billion, reversing prior losses.
Capital expenditure exceeded ₦565 billion in the first half of the year alone, underscoring confidence in Nigeria’s digital future and the policy direction of the telecoms sector.
Other blue-chip firms, including Dangote Cement, posted strong earnings with profit after tax exceeding ₦520 billion, reinforcing the sense that reform was translating into corporate resilience rather than contraction.
Amid these developments, Nigeria’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector also began to reflect the macroeconomic stabilisation delivered by policy reforms. After several years of losses driven by foreign-exchange volatility and inflationary pressures, major FMCG firms recorded a notable rebound in 2025 as currency conditions improved.
The sector posted 54.1 per cent value growth in 2025, up from 34.3 per cent in 2024, according to a report by global data and analytics firm NielsenIQ.
Nigerian consumers continued to underpin demand, lifting the FMCG market to an estimated value of $25 billion, the second largest in Africa after South Africa’s $27.5 billion market.
Across the continent, the five largest FMCG markets; South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and Kenya, together account for about $42 billion in total value.
Nigeria’s growth rate outpaced its peers. Egypt expanded by 23.1 per cent to $10.2 billion, Morocco grew 7.6 per cent to $7.5 billion, and Kenya increased 5.5 per cent to $3.3 billion, highlighting Nigeria’s outsized contribution to regional momentum.
At the company level, Nestlé Nigeria Plc returned to profitability, posting a ₦88.4 billion pre-tax profit in the first half of 2025, compared with a ₦252.5 billion loss in the same period a year earlier.
The turnaround was supported by a 43 per cent increase in revenue to ₦581.1 billion and more stable cost structures.
Broader market data reflected the recovery. FMCG stocks delivered strong performances on the Nigerian Exchange, with the consumer goods index posting solid gains and several stocks recording returns of more than 100 per cent over the year as investor confidence returned to the sector.
“Nigeria’s FMCG story is one of grit and innovation,” said Dr Tayo Ajayi, a Lagos-based consumer market analyst. “Even when the economy is under pressure, Nigerians adjust their spending habits rather than stop spending. That adaptability is what keeps the sector alive.”
Energy and industrial policy formed the next layer of the reform arc. The Dangote Refinery, already operating at 650,000 barrels per day, confirmed plans to expand capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, a move analysts say could significantly reduce fuel imports, ease pressure on foreign exchange, and strengthen Nigeria’s trade balance.
The refinery has become emblematic of the government’s push to support large-scale local production as a substitute for imports and a magnet for global capital.
At the national level, NNPC Ltd continued its post-commercialisation reset. Group Chief Executive Bayo Ojulari said recent operational improvements reflected structural reforms within the company, noting that oil production rose from about 1.5 million barrels per day in 2024 to over 1.7 million barrels per day in 2025.
He also highlighted the strategic importance of the 614-kilometre Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) gas pipeline, designed to transport 2.2 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day, in unlocking industrial growth in northern Nigeria.
Ojulari said the company’s focus for 2026 would be attracting new investments, lifting output to at least 1.8 million barrels per day, and supporting President Bola Tinubu’s directive for NNPC to help attract $30 billion in investments by 2030.
Infrastructure and future-facing sectors rounded out the year. Progress continued on the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, with financing of approximately $1.126 billion secured by the Ministry of Finance and the Economy for Phase 1, Section 2 of the road, a signature project of the Tinubu administration.
President Tinubu stated:
“This is a major achievement, and closing this transaction means the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will continue unimpeded. Our administration will continue to explore available funding opportunities to execute critical economic and priority infrastructural projects across the country”.
Port decentralisation plans in southern Nigeria, along with digital-skills programmes under the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy including the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) initiative led by Minister Bosun Tijani, complemented the infrastructure drive (FMOCDE). The creative economy, encompassing film, music, fashion, and digital content, remained a fast-growing source of jobs and exports, increasingly recognised in policy circles as a serious economic asset.
The year’s most sensitive test of investor confidence came in its final week. On 25 December, US forces conducted targeted airstrikes against Islamic State-linked camps in Sokoto State, in coordination with Nigerian authorities.
The government moved quickly to frame the action as part of a broader stability agenda. In a statement released on 28 December, Wale Edun stressed that “security and economic stability are inseparable,” describing the operation as “precise, intelligence-led and focused exclusively on terrorist elements that threaten lives, national stability, and economic activity.”
He added that Nigeria “is not at war with itself or any nation, but is confronting terrorism alongside trusted international partners,” a distinction aimed squarely at markets and multilateral partners.
That framing captured the essence of Nigeria’s 2025 reform story. Security was not presented as an isolated military matter, but as an economic input, a prerequisite for investment, production, and growth.
As Edun noted,
“Every effort to safeguard Nigerians is, by definition, pro-growth and pro-investment,” a message calibrated for investors as markets prepared to reopen.
Nigeria enters 2026 with risks still evident, but with clearer direction. The proposed ₦58.18 trillion federal budget for 2026, anchored on revenue mobilisation, infrastructure spending, and deficit restraint, reflects an effort to consolidate gains rather than reset strategy.
For investors, the signal from 2025 is not perfection, but coherence: policy, security, and markets increasingly moving in the same direction.
For an economy long defined by stops and starts, that alignment may prove the most valuable reform of all.
*David Okon is a marketing communications and policy consultant at Quadrant MSL, a part of the Publicis Groupe and Troyka+Insight Redefini Group.
