2030 is a pivotal year for the Nigerian economy. It is the year Nigeria is to cross to a trillion dollar economy as stated by Nigeria’s President, Tinubu. Interestingly the Dangote group has also chosen 2030 as the year to achieve a hundred billion dollar annual revenue, ten percent of the national target. If one were to place a bet on either of the two targets, it is obvious who wins hands down.
We have to go down memory lane and compare previous records. In mid 2000s Nigeria was slated to be a trillion dollar economy by 2020. However, due to policy reversals Nigeria has retreated from nominal GDP heights of close to $600 billion dollars in 2014 to below $300 billion dollars in 2023 and 2024. This is the track record Tinubu inherited. The question is, what has President Tinubu and his team learnt from this crash so that policies do not truncate his own efforts to get Nigeria over the target and beyond.
On observing President Tinubu and his team I figure a team that a trillion dollar economy just sounds good to propagate. One can glean this from earlier pronouncements from the team. First it was trillion dollar economy by the year 2027, followed by three trillion by 2030, both pronouncements unrealisable. The means of getting to a trillion dollar economy by 2030 has never been presented to the public, mere pronouncements are made.
President Tinubu has reverted to Obasanjo/Iweala economic reforms of the 2000s that delivered stellar growth, beyond that there is really no double digit growth plan on ground needed to accelerate to the target. Quoting Mr Tilewa Adebajo on AriseNews, he asked, what is President Tinubu and his team doing to consciously grow the economy at 8-10%? What we have anew is the tax reforms which cannot deliver economic growth because it’s foundational basis of 18% tax to GDP is faulty. An example of a real growth contributor under Obasanjo was his nudging the Rabius, the Ibetos, the Dangotes to stop the nations dependence on imported cement. Currently as Nigeria approaches surplus cement production concrete roads are becoming the order of the day.
On the other hand President Tinubu has placed an high score on infrastructure driving economic growth hence legacy projects as the Lagos Calarbar Coastal Road. Former President Buhari was strong on infrastructure, completing the second Niger bridge, the Lagos Ibadan rail and other projects. Yet through the eight years of Buhari, not once did economic growth go beyond 3.5%. Annual growth in eight years averaged below two percent! Yet Tinubu insists on towing this line. Former President Buhari borrowed yet the economy suffered. President Tinubu is borrowing and miɠht out borrow Buhari’s borrowings by the end of his two terms.
Oil prices are crashing in slow motion, down to around &$60 per barrel from heights of $80 dollars. Unfortunately not much is being done to cushion Nigeria’s economy from the vagaries of international oil prices. The dollar naira equation is being managed from the demand side not from the supply side. Inclusive to these handicaps is the on going tax reforms. They are not enablers of Tinubu’s trillion dollar dream.
On the other hand the Dangote Group’s track record is impressive , achieving close to a $20 billion dollar turnover this 2025. In this article focus is on his exploits to achieve the hundred billion dollar annual turnover by 2030. What do we have? Quadrupling fertiliser production in five years, tripling petrochemicals production and doubling production of refined petroleum products in three years. Meanwhile, Nigerian government has nothing of such on the table, just dreams. If government has, there is the implementation problem that has bedevilled all our developmental goals of the past. Mr President sir, Alhaji Dangote said he was stepping down from his plans to build a mega steel plant that will contribute to your trillion dollar dream and meet West Africa’s steel needs and you didn’t bat an eye. All we read about is your steel minister saying Ajaokuta is being revived. Another refinery like cesspool booting, ready to siphon billions of dollars into pockets. This your cat ain’t catching any mice, but Dangote’s cat will!
Implementation is where the difference lies. Aliko knows how to implement his dreams, ministers are implementers of Tinubu’s dreams. Unfortunately Nigerian ministers are just dreamers not doers. Doers, implementers, are in the private world, in Nnewi, in free trade zones, in export businesses, in Aba. Go to these places, support them so you can have hope of achieving your target.
If Alhaji Aliko Dangote achieves his revenue targets and Nigeria underperforms, he will be close to twenty percent of Nigeria’s economy not ten percent.This would be no fault of his but that of the Nigerian business elite who abandoned his type of investment to seek rent taking ventures. Meanwhile Aliko is building up an impressive war chest to meet his goals. When he was worth around $15 billion dollars and $5 billion annual revenue he executed $25 billion dollar projects. Now his net worth has doubled and his dollar revenues has quintupled he has a war chest of between $60 and $100 billion dollars to deploy to meet his target. While Nigeria is ladened with growing liabilities Dangote Group has down sized its liabilities.
Tinubu should borrow a leaf from former President Obasanjo who purposed to create a number of dollar billionaires of which Aliko Dangote was prime. Mr President Tinubu should focus on creating ten more Dangotes who operate like Aliko in existing and novel sectors like copper beneficiation, alumina smelting and mega steel plants. Not rent seekers but real entrepreneurs from places like Aba, Nnewi and Kano. Too many rent seekers in Lagos so I am not inclined to mention Lagos, but I stand to be corrected. We need billionaires who have multiplier effects on the economy, not paparazzi ovation magazine billionaires. These would be the implementers of your trillion dollar economy goal.
A lesson the federal government of Nigeria has to learn from Alhaji Dangote is the importance of gaining control of the national currency vis a vis foreign currencies. This control was lost in the last ten years and led to massive devaluations. The last devaluation was particularly vicious as the naira lost four times it’s value in two years. Our nominal GDP receded by half from almost half a trillion dollars to just above a quarter of a trillion dollar in 2023 2024. This scenario can repeat in future such that on attaining the trillion dollar status it can drop significantly if the naira undergoes drastic devaluation as happened between 2023 and 2024.
In the same period that the naira was being devalued Dangote group retained value by purposing to earn 85 % of its revenue in foreign currency. Smart move as he is protected from currency swings. Keeping a substantial foreign reserve upwards of $100 billion dollars is the means by which Nigerian GDP can be protected from wild currency swings.
Olugbenga Jaiyesimi can be reached via jerry3jaiye@gmail.com or 08123709109
