Nigeria’s goal to become a $1 trillion economy will demand nothing short of sustained double-digit growth over the next decade, Doris Uzoka-Anite, minister of State for Finance, has said.
Speaking on Wednesday at the 2026 Annual General Meeting of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Abuja, Uzoka-Anite said the country must grow its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by between 10 and 12% annually for the next 10 years to hit the $1 trillion target.
With Nigeria’s GDP currently estimated at about $375 billion, the target is a fundamental shift in the structure and productivity of Africa’s largest economy.
Breaking the Cycle of Stunted Growth
For years, Nigeria’s growth rate has hovered between 2 and 3%, barely enough to keep pace with population growth.
“That is an ambitious target, and this administration is not shy about saying so,” Uzoka-Anite said.
Describing the target as ambitious but necessary, she stressed that reforms introduced since 2023 were designed to fix the structural distortions that suppressed growth.
Among them, she pointed to the N5 trillion annual cost of the fuel subsidies and the former multiple exchange rate system, both of which she described as primary drags on fiscal stability and investor trust.
According to the minister, dismantling those limitations was painful but unavoidable if the country is to ensure private capital and boost productivity.
DGAS: The Strategy to Reclaim Local Production
The government is pinning its hopes on a new framework called the Disinflation and Growth Acceleration Strategy (DGAS). Jointly built by the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), this nine-pillar plan aims to push growth above 7% by 2027 without letting inflation spiral out of control.
A major pain point identified by the Minister is Nigeria’s reliance on foreign inputs.
Currently, about 70% of the raw materials used in local factories are imported. This means Nigeria effectively exports jobs and imports inflation.
The Minister used the Dangote Refinery as a case study, suggesting that the Dangote model of processing our own crude instead of shipping it out and buying it back as expensive petrol must be scaled across other sectors.
Key Sectors Targeted For This Process-It-Here Revolution Include:
- Agriculture:Moving from cocoa and cashew exports to finished food products.
- Mining:Ensuring solid minerals are refined locally before leaving our shores.
- Manufacturing:Reducing the 70% import dependency for industrial raw materials.
Betting Big on the African Market
While internal reforms are the engine, the government is looking at the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as the fuel.
Nigeria has finally submitted its ECOWAS tariff offer to the AfCFTA secretariat, which essentially means zero duties on 90% of goods traded within the continent.
By opening these doors, the administration hopes to give Nigerian businesses a massive, duty-free market, providing the scale needed to justify heavy industrial investment.
The Minister’s logic is simple: if Nigeria can stop importing its cost structure and start exporting finished goods to the rest of Africa, the resulting tax revenues and household wealth will be on a different order of magnitude.
The Reality of the Short-Term Pain
Uzoka-Anite did not shy away from the hardships many Nigerians are currently facing. She acknowledged that the unification of the exchange rate and the subsidy removal caused significant short-term pain. However, she insisted that these moves are finally being vindicated.
She cited the January 2026 S&P Global Ratings update, which moved Nigeria’s outlook to positive, as proof that the international community is starting to believe in the country’s fiscal recovery.
For the government, the $1 trillion goal is no longer a vanity project it is the only way to generate the wealth needed to lift millions out of poverty.
