For years, Nigeria has been not so much a sleeping giant as a comatose one. Home to nearly one in five sub-Saharan Africans, its market of 230mn people should be an engine of continental growth. Instead it has been a drag, stuck in an oil-dependent rut, plagued by banditry and run by a political elite bent on self-enrichment. It is hardly surprising that all but a few investors may have missed the fact that Nigeria has turned a corner.
Halfway through the first presidential term of Bola Tinubu, who completes two years in office this Thursday, Nigeria is in better shape than at any time in the past decade. That may come as a surprise — or even sound like a sick joke — to tens of millions of Nigerians who are suffering the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.
Yet Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos and the country’s wiliest politician in a generation, has stabilised the economy and laid the groundwork for a broader recovery. This year, the World Bank expects growth of 3.7 per cent, in what would be Nigeria’s best performance since 2014 save for a post-Covid rebound. Most ordinary Nigerians won’t feel that yet. But it is a decent performance when oil prices are weak. The tiny green shoots have come because Tinubu’s government has tackled — albeit in often haphazard fashion — debilitating structural distortions.