Nigeria’s economy expanded at a slower pace in the first quarter of 2026, with real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth easing to 3.89 percent year-on-year, down from 4.07 percent recorded in the final quarter of 2025. The moderation reflects weaker output across major productive sectors, particularly agriculture and industry, despite pockets of resilience within the services-driven non-oil economy.
Official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics indicates that agricultural growth slowed to 3.2 percent in Q1 2026 from 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, while industrial sector expansion moderated to 3.50 percent from 3.88 percent. The slowdown in these sectors, which employ a large share of the labour force, continues to raise concerns about the economy’s capacity to generate sufficient jobs.
Brandspur Banking News Desk reports that non-oil GDP growth also edged lower to 3.94 percent in Q1 2026 from 3.99 percent in Q4 2025, reflecting broad-based weakness across most sub-sectors. However, performance was uneven, with information and communications technology, financial services, trade, and arts and entertainment providing relative support. Notably, the ICT sector rebounded strongly into double-digit growth, expanding by 10.98 percent compared with 7.55 percent in the preceding quarter.
The oil sector remained in positive territory but experienced a sharp deceleration, with growth slowing to 2.57 percent from 6.79 percent in Q4 2025. This was partly driven by lower crude oil production, which averaged about 1.55 million barrels per day, down from 1.62 million barrels per day in the corresponding period of 2025. Oil refining recorded the fastest growth among sub-sectors, expanding by over 37 percent, but its overall impact on GDP remained minimal due to its extremely small recorded share.
Analysts have expressed concern that official GDP figures may not yet fully capture recent developments in oil refining, including output linked to the Dangote Refinery. While trade data already reflects some effects of domestic refining, manufacturing and industrial output figures are widely viewed as understated, limiting the visibility of the sector’s true contribution to growth.
Overall, economists warn that growth below 4 percent is insufficient to meaningfully improve living standards or absorb Nigeria’s expanding workforce. Sustained, significantly higher growth rates are seen as necessary for the economy to recover from the effects of currency devaluation and fiscal pressures experienced between 2023 and 2025, and to deliver broad-based improvements in incomes and employment.
