Looking Beyond GDP

by Obinna Chima

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the much-awaited rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates during the week, pegging the nominal GDP at N372.82 trillion (approximately $243 billion) as at 2024, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 18.30 percent in nominal terms. With this, Nigeria is now Africa’s fourth-largest economy after South Africa, $410.34 billion, Egypt $347.34 billion, and Algeria $268.89 billion. The NBS also revealed that the economy grew by 3.13 per cent in the first quarter of the year (Q1 2025). Essentially, the exercise changed the base year used for calculating economic activities to 2019 from 2010.
Statistician General of the Federation (SGF)/Chief Executive, NBS, Adeyemi Adeniran, said the outcomes reflected changes in economic reality.

In real terms, GDP grew -6.96 per cent in 2020 (COVID-19 year); 0.95 per cent in 2021; 4.32 per cent in 2022; 3.04 per cent in 2023; and 3.38 per cent in 2024, Adeniran stated.
According to the results, the informal sector contributed N86.85 trillion or 42.5 per cent to the overall economy.  
Following the rebasing of GDP using 2019 as the base year, the economy grew by 3.13 per cent year-on-year in real terms in Q1 2025, compared to 2.27 in Q1 2024.
Also, during the week, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Monetary Policy Committee at the end of its meeting retained the MPR, the rate at which commercial banks borrow from the central bank, at 27.50 per cent; retained the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +500/-100 basis points, the cash reserve ratio of deposit money banks at 50 per cent, and merchant banks at 16 per cent, and left the liquidity ratio unchanged at 30 per cent.

But while the statistical formatting of economic growth has brightened the outlook, it doesn’t necessarily translate into better lives for ordinary Nigerians still battling with hardship and low quality of life.  A GDP growth of 3.13 percent in Q1 2025 remains weak and insufficient to make a substantial dent in poverty, which currently affects nearly 60 percent of the population.

It’s precisely at this juncture that Kate Raworth’s book – ‘Doughnut Economics – Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist’ offers a vital lens on the need for policymakers and economic managers to look beyond GDP numbers. Raworth argues that the focus should shift from aggregate output to human well-being in order to create economies that prioritise social justice, reduce inequality, and operate within the ecological limits of the planet.
According to the author, “For over 70 years, economics has been fixated on GDP, or national output, as itS primary measure of progress. That fixation has been used to justify extreme inequalities of income and wealth coupled with unprecedented destruction of the living world.
“For the 21st century, a far bigger goal is needed: Meeting the human rights of every person within the means of our life-giving planet.”

A doughnut approach, which Raworth proposes, puts human capital at the front and centre.
“We evidently want something more than growth, but our politicians cannot find the words, and economists have long declined to supply them. So, it’s time to cry and to laugh, but, most of all, it’s time to talk again of what matters,” she adds.
Raworth further argues that sustainable economics means meeting everyone’s essential needs such as food, water, housing, healthcare, and political voice, without breaching ecological boundaries like climate stability and biodiversity loss. She also stresses that growth in low‑income countries must be “significant” to reach social thresholds, but tempered to avoid environmental collapse.

Nigeria’s situation underscores that GDP alone is inadequate as a measure of progress and should not be the guiding policy north star.
No doubt, the 2025 rebasing was overdue. It added vast informal economic activity— e‑commerce, labour, pension fund operations, arts and culture, tourism into national accounts.
In 2019, agriculture accounted for 22.12 percent of the GDP, while industry contributed 27.65 percent and services 50.22 percent. But according to the rebased 2019 figures, the share of agriculture has risen to 25.83 percent, industry declined to 21.08 percent, while services increased to 53.09 percent.

However, these numbers conceal as much as they reveal, as GDP rebasing doesn’t guarantee poverty reduction, as nearly 133 million Nigerians remain multi-dimensionally poor, roughly 63 percent of the population. By GDP per capita, which represents the average economic output or income per person in that country, and is often used to gauge the standard of living, Nigeria ranks 146th out of 191 countries. Even the seven percent GDP growth target the country is pursuing is still far below its current inflation rate, which stood at 22.7 percent as at June 2025, eroding real incomes and fueling hardship.
Nigeria has one of the lowest life expectancies in Africa, particularly due to high infant and maternal mortality and poor access to healthcare.

Clearly, nice GDP numbers have not translated into universal access to primary healthcare or a reduction in preventable deaths. Despite population growth, educational outcomes remain weak. The World Bank reports Nigeria’s human capital index among the lowest globally: children born in 2020 are expected to reach only 36 percent of their full potential productively without better access to education and health services.

These are the reasons Raworth insists that social indicators, not just output, are the real test of progress. Without complementary reforms, sexy GDP numbers risk looking impressive on the surface but lacking meaningful impact. For policymakers and Nigeria’s economic managers, this means crafting policies that simultaneously target ensuring sufficient access to education, health, housing, livelihoods for all citizens, especially the several millions living in poverty, and its rising number of unemployed youths.

They must also expand national statistics to track social outcomes such as education attainment rates, life expectancy, poverty depth, ecological footprints, carbon emissions, water stress and use these indicators as Raworth proposes to assess national performance, alongside GDP.
Additionally, governance must become participatory. Policies around land, resource use, urban planning, health delivery, and education should involve local communities, civil society, and youth.

A larger GDP should be seen as necessary but not sufficient. Policymakers must look beyond the statistical uplift and redirect fiscal savings to social sectors, deliver jobs beyond subsistence, formalise the informal economy, green infrastructure, measure what matters, and expand participatory governance.
Only then can Nigeria’s economic story break free from GDP’s narrow confines and become a narrative of true human and ecological flourishing. Nigeria’s path forward, therefore, lies not just in GDP numbers but in the statistics translating to better lives.