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The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has called on the Federal Government to sustain its economic reform programme while continuously refining its implementation to address emerging economic realities.
Director of CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf, made the call while commenting on the government’s economic reform scorecard, noting that the data presented by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy provided greater clarity on the fiscal and macroeconomic outcomes of the reforms and addressed key concerns in public discourse.
Yusuf acknowledged that the reforms had delivered measurable macroeconomic gains, with real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth strengthening to 3.89 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, from 3.13 per cent in the corresponding period of 2025.
However, he said the real test was whether improved macroeconomic stability would translate into higher productivity, stronger investment, more jobs, reduced poverty and better living standards for Nigerians.
According to him, government revenues have strengthened, the foreign exchange market has become more stable, external reserves have improved, the trade surplus has expanded and investor confidence has recovered.
He, however, stressed that “macroeconomic stability is a means, not an end,” noting that the transmission of the gains to households and businesses remained incomplete.
Yusuf said purchasing power remained under pressure, while businesses continued to contend with high energy, financing, logistics and regulatory costs.
He therefore urged the government to make productivity, competitiveness and household welfare the major focus of the next phase of the reform programme.
The CPPE director also noted that the reforms had significantly expanded the fiscal space of state governments through higher statutory allocations and, in many cases, stronger internally generated revenues.
He said the increased resources should translate into a greater development role for state governments, with citizens demanding measurable improvements in roads, healthcare, public transportation, education, agricultural infrastructure, security, electricity and enterprise support.
“Higher revenues must produce a visible development and welfare dividend, rather than simply finance higher recurrent expenditure and prestige projects,” he said.
Yusuf identified the supply side of the economy as the next major reform frontier, stressing that Nigeria’s key constraints were increasingly structural, including electricity supply, logistics, insecurity, agricultural productivity, infrastructure, regulatory costs and the cost of capital.
He noted that the electricity sector contracted by 15.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, while manufacturing grew by 3.29 per cent and agriculture by 3.15 per cent.
According to him, accelerating growth in productive sectors would require a decisive reduction in these structural costs.
The CPPE boss also called for trade policies that would strengthen domestic productive capacity, arguing that industries and agricultural producers with credible local capacity should receive calibrated protection against unfair import competition.
At the same time, he said domestic producers should retain competitive access to critical inputs that were not adequately available locally.
On monetary policy, Yusuf described the prevailing high-interest-rate environment as challenging for businesses, urging stronger fiscal and monetary coordination as inflation moderates to create room for a gradual reduction in financing costs without compromising macroeconomic stability.
He cautioned against reversing the ongoing reforms, describing such a move as potentially damaging to the economy.
According to him, reversing the reforms could undermine investor confidence, weaken fiscal stability, destabilise the foreign exchange market and reintroduce distortions the reforms were designed to correct.
“Such a reversal could trigger significant economic dislocations and erode the gains already achieved,” he said.
Yusuf therefore called for the reform trajectory to be sustained, while implementation is continuously refined in response to evidence, implementation experience and its impact on businesses and households.
He said the next phase of the reform agenda must move decisively from stabilisation to productivity, from higher government revenues to better development outcomes, and from improved macroeconomic indicators to tangible gains in jobs, incomes and living standards.
