The federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have jointly launched a new economic framework known as the Dis-Inflation and Growth Acceleration Strategy (DGAS), aimed at sustaining growth above 7 percent, cutting inflation to single digits, and doubling national and household income to reduce poverty.
Speaking at the 2025 Annual Executive Policy Seminar held in Abuja on Tuesday, Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, said the DGAS represents the “second wave of reforms” under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, following bold actions on energy pricing and foreign exchange liberalization.
She explained that the DGAS, co-created by the Ministry of Finance and the CBN, seeks to integrate fiscal and monetary policies to deliver non-inflationary, inclusive growth.
“Traditional monetary tightening alone cannot deliver sustainable recovery, nor can fiscal expansion in isolation produce the scale of impact that our people require,” Uzoka-Anite said. “What Nigeria needs at this stage is a unified national framework that integrates both monetary and fiscal levers to drive non-inflationary growth and structural transformation.”
According to her, the DGAS aims to achieve sustained GDP growth above 7 percent while steadily bringing inflation to single digits through supply-side expansion rather than demand suppression.
She said the ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for Nigerians. “National and household income will double, reducing poverty by a substantial percentage. And if we achieve more than 7 percent growth, then the period within which the income objective we are expecting will be accelerated,” she stated.
The minister explained that DGAS will be implemented through a “single-window execution platform” that unifies development finance, private capital mobilization, project incubation, policy coordination, and performance management under one institution.
“That platform will work hand-in-hand with the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance,” she said. “It ensures that monetary policy incentives such as targeted credit windows and FX market reforms reinforce fiscal measures aimed at industrial expansion, job creation, and export growth.”
Uzoka-Anite described DGAS as a framework that “bridges fiscal intent with monetary execution,” bringing coherence between policy, capital, and productivity. “It enables us to move beyond fragmented interventions to a coordinated national strategy for incentivization and accelerating growth,” she said.
She outlined nine coordinated pillars under DGAS designed to deliver both immediate economic stabilization and long-term transformation across key sectors of the economy.
At the heart of the framework is capital mobilization and financial innovation, which she said will attract long-term domestic and foreign financing through vehicles such as dual-stake diaspora funds, global institutional funds, and guarantee-backed investments.
“This structure ensures liquidity, sustainability, and transparency while reducing reliance on short-term credits and volatile portfolio flows,” Uzoka-Anite said. “As productivity rises, the economy will naturally support a lower and more sustainable cost of capital, making financing more accessible for industrial expansion, infrastructure development, and economic growth.”
She added that Nigeria must replicate successful industrial stories like the Dangote Refinery across other sectors. “If we replicate the Dangote refinery story in multiple sectors, it will result in sharp rises in job creation, tax earnings, and wealth transfers to households, investors, and entrepreneurs,” she said.
On energy expansion, the minister said DGAS prioritizes maximizing all available energy resources—oil, gas, hydro, solar, wind, biomass, and hydrogen—to power industrial growth. She added that the plan aligns with global carbon market frameworks to attract green capital and promote sustainable industrialization.
She further noted that the government aims to enroll 10 million young Nigerians annually in technical and vocational programs linked to priority sectors, turning “demographic pressure into productive capacity.”
Uzoka-Anite said DGAS also redefines the role of consumers in economic development through a revitalized consumer credit system that will “allow citizens access to structured financing for housing, education, healthcare, automobile, and household goods.”
“This deepens domestic demand, expands financial inclusion, and transforms 200 million Nigerians into active participants in national prosperity,” she said.
She also revealed that every government agency will undergo a review to ensure its regulations support value creation, noting that “at least 40 percent of existing rules can be stripped out to allow entrepreneurs to do what they do best.”
According to her, both the Ministry of Finance and the CBN are “twin engines” driving DGAS implementation. “Together, we will ensure that our shared objectives—price stability, productive expansion, job creation, and competitiveness—are synchronized paths of national advancement,” Uzoka-Anite said.
Also speaking at the event, CBN Governor, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, said the bank will continue to strengthen its human capital and policy credibility to support economic transformation.
“Gone are the days when we move staff to a branch and they get forgotten there,” he said. “You must, as much as possible, have varied experiences so that by the time you’re being considered for topmost positions, you’re somebody who’s been there and seen it all.”
Cardoso pointed out that price stability remains at the core of the CBN’s mandate, describing a credible inflation-targeting regime as vital for enhancing predictability and investor confidence.
“Investors run away from lack of predictability,” he said. “The more the predictability, the more the incentive for investors to come into your market. Once you get the fundamentals right and you’re doing the right things, investors naturally get attracted.”
He said collaboration with fiscal authorities remains key to reducing production costs and boosting local industrial competitiveness.
The CBN governor also identified services and the creative industries—including music, film, design, and digital innovation—as new export frontiers for Nigeria’s growth.
He assured that Nigerians will no longer need connections to access legitimate opportunities within the system. “You would not have to know the government, the governor, or the directors,” Cardoso said. “Having to come to the Central Bank every day because you want one thing or the other is now a thing of the past.”
Cardoso also cautioned against returning to unsustainable fiscal practices. “A situation where we had frightening ways and means to GDP ratios should never happen again,” he said. “Interventions flew all over the place with no results, but we shouldn’t sit down and blame others. This economy belongs to all of us.”
He urged Nigerians to take collective ownership of economic progress, saying: “We’ve all got to put everything together to ensure that at the end of the day, we bake a bigger pie. Our GDP today relative to our population is not where we want it to be, and thank you very much to the Honorable Minister for taking the time to explain that.”
Cardoso concluded that the CBN’s ongoing reforms, working in tandem with the government’s DGAS framework, will strengthen macroeconomic stability and investor confidence, paving the way for sustainable growth in Nigeria.
