Nigeria’s rebased economy must translate into industrial growth — Minister
…Need to shift from resilience to sustained growth – MAN
By Yinka Kolawole
The Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, has said that Nigeria is faced with the challenge of translating the country’s N372.8 trillion rebased economy into higher manufacturing output, jobs and value addition, warning that a bigger economy on paper means little without stronger industrial capacity.
Enoh, who is also Chairman of the Industrial Revolution Work Group, IRWG, spoke in Lagos, on Monday, at the second technical session of the group, where he challenged policymakers to move from measuring the economy to building its productive capacity.
He noted that the rebasing had enlarged the statistical size of the economy but had not fundamentally changed its productive structure, with manufacturing still contributing less than 10 per cent of output while services account for more than half.
“The rebasing made Nigeria statistically larger. It did not make Nigeria more industrial. We got a bigger mirror; we did not yet get a stronger body,” he stated.
Enoh said the country must therefore make the coming decade an “execution decade”, with emphasis on implementing policies and interventions that can deliver measurable industrial growth.
“No nation on this earth industrialised by accident, and none industrialised by endowment. Nations industrialise by decision, and then by the daily, unglamorous keeping of that decision,” he said.
The minister cited the experiences of South Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Morocco, arguing that sustained commitment to industrial policies, infrastructure, financing and skills had enabled those countries to build competitive manufacturing sectors.
Reviewing the IRWG’s progress since February 2025, Enoh said more than $380 million in strategic financing had been mobilised for industrial projects, while a proposed N350 billion MSME Development Fund was also under consideration.
He added that 400 young Nigerians had been trained in mechatronics across four states, Nigerian products had secured certification for continental markets under African Quality Marks, and quick-win financing channels had been activated through the Bank of Industry (BoI).
He also cited the operationalisation of the Nigeria First policy in public procurement and the development of a National Industrial Policy (NIP) as key steps towards strengthening domestic production, warning, however, that the interventions remained inadequate without scale.
Also speaking at the event, Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said Nigeria must urgently move its manufacturing sector from mere resilience to sustained growth above the pace of the wider economy if the country is to achieve meaningful industrial transformation
According to him, the current recovery in industry and manufacturing remained selective and fragile, with the sector’s share of Gross Domestic Product, GDP, still under pressure.
He said the objective of IRWG should be to pursue a broad-based acceleration of manufacturing, anchored on lower energy costs, cheaper credit, stronger domestic demand, backward integration and export expansion.
“Resilience is not a virtue when you really need to be speeding, as many other nations are doing,” he said, stressing that the decisive test was whether manufacturing could sustain growth above the wider economy, increase its GDP contribution and spread growth across employment-intensive subsectors.
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