Chief Executive Officer of CFG Advisory, Tilewa Adebajo has said that the ongoing exercise to rebase Gross Domestic Product (GDP)and consumer price index (CPI) might not yield the desired results.
Adebajo who made this statement in his recent report tagged “Nigeria’s 2025 economic forecast; from fatigue Quagmire sustainable growth” said that Nigeria needs to reduce it’s debt burden before the economy will stabilised.
He said “for Nigeria to get the economy back on track, the government must reduce its debt burden, restore its credit rating to investment grade and tame inflation.”
This according to him would reduce borrowing costs and provide stimulus for investment, sustainable growth, productivity, and employment.
To accomplish this, he said FGN must restructure its capital structure and balance sheet, adding that selling down its JV oil assets will raise $30-50 billion, that can be applied to reduce the debt burden, improve the foreign exchange regime, provide dollar supply for naira appreciation, restore credit rating and boost net reserves.
With this development, he said “We will see another year of high interest rates with inflation trajectory downwards to about 22 per cent by year end,with effective rate cuts to sub 20 per cent by first quarter 2026.
He said the Naira position could be sub-1000/$ or north of 2000/$ depending on how government manages Its debt profile, boost oil production and asset sales.
The oil and gas sector GDP grew by 10.2 per cent with only $3 billion investments in 2024.
Investment levels of $22 billion recorded in 2009 and 2014 must be emulated to sustain optimal production.
He however, said that the Nigeria’s 18-month economic reform program has yielded mixed results, largely due to poor implementation and putting the cart before the horse.
He said the program’s biggest impact on the economy has been the devaluation of the naira from about N450-N1700 to a US dollar.