Why More Revenue Won’t Make Nigeria’s Economy Bigger — Jatto

An economist and Senior Lecturer at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Dr Victoria Hauwa Jatto, said she has seen both a promise and a peril when she took a look at Nigeria’s recent revenue figures, saying it won’t buy the country’s bigger economy despite its enormous size.

“By any nominal measure, this is a revenue revolution,” Dr Jatto noted, but warned that Nigeria must resist the temptation to mistake this windfall for economic transformation. In a statement, Jatto explained that: “The numbers are staggering. According to data from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), the Federation Account earned ₦88.91 trillion between 2023 and 2025, more than three times the ₦29.07 trillion of the preceding four years. Company income tax rose 315 per cent in three years, while VAT climbed 283 per cent. By 2025, monthly disbursements to the three tiers of government were exceeding ₦1 trillion. “The uncomfortable truth is that revenue, by itself, contributes nothing to the trillion-dollar target,” she cautioned. “Economies are not measured by what their governments collect but by what their people produce.”
“Real growth ran below population growth, so average incomes were quietly falling,” Dr. Jatto explained. “Most importantly, the number one ranking rested on an administered exchange rate defended by rationing dollars. Nigeria was Africa’s largest economy at a price at which dollars could not actually be bought.”

Exchange rate unification in June 2023 ended the pretence. As the naira found its market level, Nigeria’s GDP in dollar terms fell from $477 billion in 2022 to roughly $253 billion in 2024. The IMF’s April 2024 rankings told a sobering story: South Africa first, Egypt second, Algeria third, and Nigeria fourth.