Nigeria's economic story in 2025 is not defined by a single reform or key moment. It is shaped by indexing, a deliberate effort to stabilize the macro economy, restore institutional credibility, and align security, fiscal and market policy towards growth.
At the center of that succession has been the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, whose framework of security, capital raising and reform discipline has increasingly influenced the way investors view Nigeria.
The year began with the government focusing on repairing the analytical foundations of economic planning. In early 2025, Nigeria completed the long-awaited recalibration of its GDP to the 2019 base year, a technical exercise led by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that detailed the measured contributions of services, ICT and the informal economy.
According to the NBS, the rebasing put nominal GDP at about ₦372.8 trillion, equivalent to about $240-250 billion, giving policymakers and investors a clearer picture of the economic structure and scale.
That reset mattered. It formulated fiscal options, including tighter expenditure controls, tax administration reform, and coordination with monetary authorities to slow inflation and stabilize foreign exchange markets. By the fourth quarter of 2025, inflation which had soared over 24 percent at the beginning of the year, started to gradually decline and reached about 14.45 percent by November 2025.
Foreign exchange reserves strengthened to $47 billion, indicating strengthened external buffers and better balance of payments management, multilateral institutions including the World Bank and Afreximbank noted in their 2025 outlook for Nigeria.
By the middle of the year, the recovery story shifted from stabilization to confidence, and nowhere was this more evident than in Nigeria's capital markets. The Nigerian bourse closed 2025 as one of Africa's strongest performing bourses, with the all-share index up nearly 49 per cent year-on-year to the end of December. According to Umaru Kwairanga, Chairman of NGX Group, the total market capitalization across equities, debt and ETFs increased to about ₦150 trillion due to strong earnings, bank recapitalization and new listings.
Banking reform was important. As part of recapitalization efforts aimed at strengthening credit transmission and financial stability, Nigerian banks are set to raise an estimated Sh2.5 trillion of new capital by December 2025 through rights issues, private placements and public offers, according to NGX filings and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approvals. The capital raising strengthened balance sheets and helped boost the market, underscoring the link between prudential reforms and investor confidence.
Debt markets told a similar story. Between April and October 2025, companies raised over ₦753 billion through commercial paper issuances to meet short-term working capital needs in manufacturing, energy and agriculture. “These figures are not just numbers; they represent confidence in the resilience of our regulatory framework and our market architecture,” SEC Director General Imomotimi Agama said in a public briefing on the capital raising approval.
Landmark transactions including a ₦500 billion climate-linked SPV and a ₦200 billion Electron Finance bond pointed to the growing appetite for infrastructure and sustainable finance.
Corporate earnings provided strong macro signals. MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, one of the largest listed companies on the exchange, delivered one of the most spectacular turnarounds of the year.
By the first nine months of 2025, the telecom giant is expected to report revenue of ₦3.73 trillion, up 57 percent year-on-year, and profit after tax of about ₦750 billion, reversing previous losses. Capital expenditure in the first half of the year alone exceeded ₦565 billion, underscoring confidence in Nigeria’s digital future and the policy direction of the telecommunications sector. Other blue-chip firms including Dangote Cement recorded strong earnings with after-tax profits of more than ₦520 billion, lending credence to the sentiment that the recovery was translating into corporate resilience rather than contraction.
Amid these developments, Nigeria's fast-growing consumer goods (FMCG) sector also began to reflect the macroeconomic stabilization provided by the policy reforms. After several years of losses driven by forex volatility and inflationary pressures, major FMCG companies recorded a remarkable rebound in 2025 as currency conditions improved. According to a report by global data and analytics firm NielsenIQ, the sector is projected to record 54.1 per cent value growth in 2025, up from 34.3 per cent in 2024.
Nigerian consumers continued to drive demand, driving the FMCG market to an estimated value of $25 billion, the second largest in Africa after South Africa's $27.5 billion market. Across the continent, the five largest FMCG markets; South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and Kenya are worth about $42 billion combined.
Nigeria's growth rate outpaced its peers. Egypt rose 23.1 percent to $10.2 billion, Morocco rose 7.6 percent to $7.5 billion, and Kenya rose 5.5 percent to $3.3 billion, highlighting Nigeria's outsized contribution to the regional momentum.
At the company level, Nestlé Nigeria Plc returned to profitability by recording a pre-tax profit of ₦88.4 billion in the first half of 2025, compared to a loss of ₦252.5 billion in the same period a year earlier. This transformation was supported by a 43 percent increase in revenues to ₦581.1 billion and more stable cost structures.
Broader market data reflected the improvement. FMCG stocks performed strongly on the Nigerian Exchange, with the Consumer Goods Index posting solid gains and many stocks recording returns of more than 100 per cent over the year, as investor confidence returned to the sector.
“Nigeria’s FMCG story is one of patience and innovation,” said Lagos-based consumer market analyst Tayo Ajayi. “Even when the economy is under pressure, Nigerians adjust their spending habits rather than stop spending. That adaptability is what keeps the sector alive.”
Energy and industrial policy formed the next layer of the reform cycle. The Dangote refinery, already operating at 650,000 barrels per day, has confirmed plans to expand capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, a move analysts say could significantly reduce fuel imports, ease pressure on the foreign exchange and strengthen Nigeria's trade balance.
The refinery has become a symbol of the government's effort to support large-scale local production as a substitute for imports and a magnet for global capital.
At the national level, NNPC Limited continued its reset after commercialization. Group chief executive Bayo Ojulari said recent operational improvements reflected structural reforms within the company, noting that oil production is expected to rise from about 1.5 million barrels per day in 2024 to 1.7 million barrels per day in 2025. He also highlighted the strategic importance of the 614 kilometer long Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline, which is designed to transport 2.2 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day in industrial unlocking. Development in Northern Nigeria.
Ojulari said the company's focus for 2026 will be on supporting President Bola Tinubu's directive for the NNPC to attract new investments, increase production to at least 1.8 million barrels per day and help attract $30 billion of investments by 2030.
The infrastructure and future-facing sectors concluded the year. Progress on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway continued, with financing of about $1.126 billion secured by the Ministry of Finance and Economy for Phase 1, Section 2 of the road, a signature project of the Tinubu administration.
President Tinubu said: “This is a great achievement, and the closing of this transaction means that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will continue uninterrupted. Our administration will continue to explore available funding opportunities to execute critical economic and priority infrastructure projects across the country”.
The Ports Decentralization Plan in Southern Nigeria complemented the infrastructure drive (FMOCDE) with digital-skills programs under the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, as well as the 3 Million Technical Talents (3MTT) initiative led by Minister Bosun Tijani. The creative economy, which includes film, music, fashion and digital content, continues to be a fast-growing source of jobs and exports, increasingly being recognized in policy circles as a serious economic asset.
The year's most sensitive test of investor confidence took place in its final week. On December 25, the US military, in coordination with Nigerian authorities, conducted targeted airstrikes against Islamic State-affiliated camps in Sokoto State.
The government moved quickly to outline actions as part of a broader sustainability agenda. In a statement issued on 28 December, Wale Edun stressed that “security and economic stability are inseparable,” describing the operation as “precise, intelligence-based and focused exclusively on terrorist elements that threaten lives, national stability and economic activity.” He said Nigeria “is not at war with itself or any country, but is combating terrorism together with trusted international partners,” a distinction aimed squarely at markets and multilateral partners.
That framing captured the essence of Nigeria’s 2025 reform story. Security was not presented as a separate military matter, but as a prerequisite for economic input, investment, production and development. As Edun said, “Every effort to protect Nigerians is, by definition, pro-growth and pro-investment,” a message calibrated to investors as markets prepare to reopen.
Nigeria enters 2026 with risks still evident, but with clear direction. The proposed ₦58.18 trillion federal budget for 2026 reflects an effort to consolidate gains, rather than a reset strategy, based on revenue mobilization, infrastructure spending and deficit control.
For investors, the signal from 2025 is not perfection, but coherence: policy, security and markets are increasingly moving in the same direction.
For an economy long defined by stops and starts, this alignment may prove to be the most valuable reform of all.
David Okon is a marketing communications and strategy consultant at Quadrant MSL, part of Publicis Groupe and Troika+Insight Redefini Group.
