2025 Nigeria’s Economic Revival: Adetilewa Adebajo Suggest 3 Key Strategies For Recovery

As Nigerians continued to grapple with the challenges of daily living, a leading Economic expert, Mr. Adetilewa Adebajo, CEO of The CFG Advisory, has suggested three key economic variables to revamp the economy and put it on a growth trajectory.

Amongst the quick fix to get the economy back on track, he said the government must reduce its debt burden, restore its credit rating to investment grade and tame inflation.

According to Adebajo in his Nigeria’s 2025 Economic Forecast themed ‘From Reform Fatigue Quagmire to Sustainable Growth’ said this would reduce borrowing costs and provide stimulus for investment,sustainable growth, productivity, and employment.

“To accomplish this, FGN must restructure its capital structure and balance sheet. 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.

Adebajo who x-rayed the Nigeria’s economic reform program, said the 18-month economic reform program produced mixed results, largely due to poor implementation and misplaced priorities.

He said the program which most significant impact has been the devaluation of the naira, has worsened the country’s stagflation, and coupled with the removal of fuel subsidies led to increased inflation, reduced household purchasing power, and higher interest rates.

“The social intervention program has also failed to provide relief to those in need. Furthermore, government borrowing has exceeded $100 billion, with debt servicing costs doubling to ₦16.3 trillion in the 2025 proposed budget.

“This is unsustainable, as it exceeds the combined budgets for defense, security, infrastructure, education, and health.

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Further in his prognosis, Mr. Adebajo argued that the gains from subsidy removal should be invested in capital expenditure to stimulate economic growth, rather than debt servicing.

Although the outlook for 2025 is uncertain, with high interest rates and inflation expected to continue, he predicted that inflation will decrease to around 22% by the end of the year, with effective rate cuts to sub 20% by Q1 2026.

“The value of the naira will depend on how the government manages its debt profile, boosts oil production, and sells assets.

“The Naira position could be sub-1000/$ or north of 2000/$ depending on how government
Investment levels of US$22 billion recorded in 2009 and 2014 must
manages its debt profile, boost oil production and asset sales.

“The oil and gas sector GDP grew by 10.2% with only US $3 Billion investments in 2024 be emulated to sustain optimal production.

“Ultimately, the success of this budget cycle, economic policies and reform strategies rests
with the FGN. The sincerity and commitment to a coordinated
monetary, fiscal, trade, industry and investment policy execution, the decisive factor”, he added.

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