Nigeria has firmly ruled out any immediate recourse to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), maintaining the growing confidence in the country’s home-grown economic recovery strategy.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, made this position clear while addressing African Finance Ministers on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Meetings in Washington.
Edun said Nigeria’s reform programme which had been sustained over the past two years had begun to “yield tangible results, restoring credibility to economic management, and strengthening the country’s ability to withstand mounting global headwinds.”
He further underscored the government’s deliberate shift towards market-led policies, stressing that Nigeria had resisted the temptation of administrative controls, particularly in the areas of management of foreign exchange and petroleum pricing.
“The direction is clear. Nigeria is staying the course with internally driven reforms rather than turning to multilateral financing,” he said.
He, however, cautioned that despite Nigeria’s improving outlook the broader African landscape remained fragile and called for “accelerated and better-coordinated international financial support for vulnerable economies, as discussions intensify around a proposed $50 billion global assistance package.”
He noted that while reforms had enabled Nigeria to build critical buffers, many African countries remained highly exposed to external shocks and urgently required support to stabilise their economies.
“Nigeria’s reliance on market mechanisms has helped to soften the impact of necessary adjustments, reducing dislocations, and keeping the economy on a steady macro-economic trajectory even as global uncertainties persist.”