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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) has predicted that the new economic model deployed by the President Bola Tinubu administration is bound to drive the country’s GDP higher in 2026 and beyond.
In a policy statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, IMPI projected that the economy would grow by 5.5 per cent in 2026, higher than the forecast of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It said: “Nigerian economy under the current administration had engendered a paradigm shift from perennial dependency on crude oil earnings to policy-driven economic facilitation.
“This refers to the deliberate use of governmental policies, regulations, and institutional frameworks to reduce obstacles, lower costs, and speed up economic activities, particularly in trade and investment.
“The facilitation, in this context, aims to foster sustainable, inclusive growth by improving efficiency and reducing red tape. Seven months after that questionable projection by the IMF, we have seen a volte-face. In an epiphany-like realisation, the IMF now speaks of a resurgent Nigerian economy as reflected in the global multilateral institution’s revised Nigerian economic outlook to a projected 4.4 per cent economic growth for 2026.
“This is the highest GDP growth projection by IMF over the last 17 years, a real expression of confidence in the Nigerian economy.”
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IMPI also referenced the general consensus on Nigeria’s growth prospects, which it attributed to the economic model adopted by the President Bola Tinubu administration.
“Beyond the IMF’s new GDP projection, we have observed a consensus around a higher than 4 percent economic growth performance expectation of the Nigerian economy by virtually all known individual and public economic commentators.
“While the Nigerian Government projected 4.68 per cent growth in 2026, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) projected a massive seven per cent, 1.5 per cent higher than the Nigeria Economic Summit Group’s 5.5 per cent for the year.
“PwC sustained the conservative threshold by projecting a 4.3 per cent growth conditioned on higher oil price while the World Bank also revised its earlier 3.7 percent projection to 4.4 percent.
“The agglomeration of these positive economic growth outlooks by domestic and global institutional players points to an emerging economic paradigm that emphasizes increased production and productivity momentum, foreign exchange stability, dis-inflation, galvanized foreign direct investment and inflow, and unobtrusive regulatory environment, anchored in policy-driven economic facilitation,” it added.
