$1 trn Economy: Nigeria Submits ECOWAS Tariff Offer to AfCFTA – Minister
The Federal Government has submitted Nigeria’s ECOWAS Tariff Offer to the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA), a strategic repositioning designed to have a fair share of the African market.
The Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite disclosed this Wednesday in Abuja at the 2026 Annual General Meeting(AGM) of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN), Abuja Chapter.
According to the Minister, the development is part of Nigeria’s quest to hit the $1 trillion economy by the year 2030.
The Minister who was represented at the occasion by the Assistant Director of Information and Public Relations of the Ministry, Mrs Uloma Nneka Amadi spoke on the theme of the AGM: “Actualizing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s $1 Trillion Economy Agenda”.
“We have submitted Nigeria’s ECOWAS Tariff Offer to the AfCFTA Secretariat, establishing zero duties on 90 percent of goods traded within the continent”.
She noted that the submission of that Tariff Offer is a binding commitment to a market of 1.4 billion people with a combined GDP of over $3 trillion”, stressing that the move by Nigeria is not a gesture, but a strategic repositioning.
“When global trade routes become contested, as they are today, regional corridors become the most reliable alternatives. Nigeria is deliberately placing itself at the center of that alternative”, she said.
Dr Uzoka-Anite gave account of what the administration has done and why it laying a foundation sound enough to carry the $1 trillion ambition.
According to her, there was need to restore “Market Integrity”
“When this administration took office in 2023, Nigeria’s economic fundamentals were structurally distorted. The fuel subsidy was consuming over N5 trillion annually, money that could not be directed toward roads, schools, or hospitals. Our foreign exchange market operated through a regime of multiple windows that rewarded rent-seeking over genuine investment. Investors could not trust the signals our market was sending”.
“The President made two decisions in rapid succession that few considered politically survivable: the removal of the fuel subsidy and the unification of the exchange rate. Both decisions imposed short-term pain. Neither decision has been reversed. Today, those reforms are being vindicated by the data. In January 2026, S&P Global Ratings revised Nigeria’s outlook to positive, affirming our B-/B credit ratings and citing measurable improvements across our external, fiscal, monetary, and economic trajectory. That kind of third-party validation is not given lightly”.
Speaking on the fiscal side, the Minister said the Country has restructured how the budget works and for the first time, “we are treating investment expenditure as a distinct pillar of public finance, separate from recurrent spending. This matters because it disciplines government to ask a different question: not just how much are we spending, but what are we building with what we spend.
The Second Wave: DGAS and the Architecture of Growth
She said the first wave of reforms restored market integrity. The second wave, which is now underway, is designed to unlock productive capacity. In collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Ministry of Finance has co-authored the Dis-inflation and Growth Acceleration Strategy, which we call DGAS. This is not a policy document that sits on a shelf. It is a nine-pillar implementation framework designed to deliver non-inflationary growth above 7 percent by 2027.
8. The pillars are concrete: capital mobilization through development finance instruments; sectoral acceleration in agriculture, energy, technology, manufacturing, and creative industries; a nationwide energy expansion program covering oil, gas, solar, hydro, and emerging fuels; digital infrastructure including broadband, AI-ready data centres, and automation; a human capital pipeline targeting over 10 million young Nigerians annually in technical and vocational programs; and an expanded Consumer Credit Platform that puts structured financing within reach of ordinary citizens for housing, education, healthcare, and goods. Each pillar has measurable targets. Each target has a performance framework attached to it.
She said the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria holds a special place in the ecosystem of economic governance in this country.
“You are not simply observers. You translate policy into language that citizens understand, and in doing so, you shape whether reforms succeed or fail in the court of public opinion. I am grateful for this invitation, and I carry it as a recognition that the work of the Federal Ministry of Finance belongs, ultimately, to the Nigerian people”.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) has partnered twenty(20) banks that deploy N10 billion monthly in a N1 trillion massive private-sector-led intervention aimed at restructuring Nigeria’s mortgage landscape and stimulating the broader economy.
Speaking at the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) 2025 Annual General Meeting in Abuja, Mr Sani Yakubu, National Coordinator(MREIF) at MOFI, revealed that 75 billion Naira has already been deployed into the mortgage sector following the successful raising of an initial 250 billion Naira tranche.
Addressing the “Life or Death” Supply Gap
Yakubu highlighted that the Nigerian housing market faces a dual crisis of demand and supply. To solve the supply-side bottleneck, the program introduces off-take guarantees. This mechanism ensures that developers can access cheaper capital by proving to financiers that buyers are already lined up through pre-approved mortgages.
”The toughest question developers face is: who is going to buy the houses?” Yakubu stated, comparing the security of a pre-ordered product to a speculative one. “By giving an off-take guarantee, we stand ready to provide mortgages to Nigerians to buy those units, making developers more bankable.”
