Nigeria economic growth slows slightly in first quarter

ABUJA - Nigeria's economy grew 3.89% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, down slightly from the final quarter of last year's 4.07% growth rate, official data showed on Monday.

• Growth slowed in both the oil and non-oil sectors when compared with the fourth quarter of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a report.

• Since taking office in 2023, President Bola Tinubu has scrapped costly fuel and power subsidies, devalued the naira currency and overhauled the tax system to try to strengthen public finances and boost growth in Africa's most populous nation.

• The economy has started to pick up pace, with growth reaching 3.87% in real terms in 2025 from 3.38% in 2024, but it is still well short of the 7% annual growth rate that Tinubu has targeted for 2027.

• Tinubu will seek a second and final four-year presidential term at an election in January next year.

• Nigeria's average daily oil production stood at 1.55 million barrels per day in the first three months of this year, versus 1.58 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, statistics agency data showed.

(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo and Shamsuddin Md;Editing by Alexander Winning and Toby Chopra)

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 9:40 AM.