• VP Shettima

The Federal Government, through the Office of the Vice President, has launched a nationwide training program to educate 10 million Nigerians on financial inclusion and literacy.

The training being implemented through the Presidential Committee on Economic & Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI), chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, is designed to equip Nigerians, particularly women and youths, with essential financial skills, investment knowledge, and digital competencies for sustainable wealth creation.

The Office of the Vice President, through the PreCEFI, on Monday, signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN); Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN); Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS); National Institute of Credit Administration (NICA); Chartered Risk Management Institute (CRMI) and Nigeria Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NIIE.

They are to jointly design training programmes, certification pathways, digital skills initiatives, and mentorship platforms that would strengthen Nigeria’s financial and enterprise workforce.

Vice President Shettima, commented: “The training is a strategic national investment in capacity as infrastructure which is the human, institutional, and ethical foundations upon which inclusive growth must rest.

Shettima noted that the Aso Accord on Economic and Financial Inclusion, which the PreCEFI is mandated to implement, recognises the fact that “financial inclusion is not achieved by access alone, but by competence, trust, and capability.”

Shettima noted that the nation “cannot build a one-trillion-dollar economy on weak skills, fragmented standards, or disconnected professional ecosystems.

VP Shettima pointed out that while capacity building is financial inclusion, “without accountants who understand MSME formalisation, credit administrators who can assess risk beyond collateral, bankers who embed consumer protection, risk professionals who anticipate digital threats, and innovators who translate ideas into enterprises, inclusion remains a slogan rather than a system.”

Maintaining that the training programme must prioritise young Nigerians and women, the VP said,

“Importantly, this collaboration prioritises women and youth inclusion and digital transformation, recognising that Nigeria’s demographic dividend will only materialise if young people are equipped with relevant skills and ethical grounding for a fast-evolving digital economy.”

He charged the PreCEFI and the professional bodies not to treat the MoU as a mere document, but as a living platform for execution.

Earlier, the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Mallam Haruna Nma Yahaya, applauded the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for its bold economic reforms that has culminated in the flag off of the financial inclusion free training programme for 10 million women and youths in Nigeria.

He said the decision to embark on the project was prompted by visible improvements in the economy as a result of the gains of the Federal Government’s policy reforms.

Yahaya assured the Vice President of their professional support in the realisation of set objectives, describing their involvement in the project as an institutional honour.

The CEO of WAWU Africa – technical partners in the programme, Mr Emmanuel Lennox, assured of the company’s readiness to deliver on the project, particularly in providing the digital platform and overall enabling environment for its success.

The Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Dr Nurudeen Abubakar Zauro, emphasised why the training of 10 million Nigerians on financial inclusion had become necessary.

“Exclusion is not only by lack of access, but by limited skills, weak institutional capacity, and insufficient professional support.

Consequently, financial inclusion is not achieved by infrastructure alone; it is achieved when people and institutions are equipped to use that infrastructure responsibly, productively, and sustainably,” he said

The high point of the event was the signing of the MoU for the capacity building programme by the Federal Government and the six professional bodies.

•Photo: Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka- Anite with the executives of First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB)

First Abu Dhabi Bank is prepared to establish a branch in Nigeria.

This was the outcome of a strategic discussion  between Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka- Anite with the executives of First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) on enhanced financial collaboration ahead of the Bank’s plans to establish a branch in Nigeria. 

“This engagement reflects growing confidence in Nigeria’s reforms and our commitment to attracting credible global capital to support growth and development,” said the minister on her X.

Uzoka- Anite emphasised that the engagement focused on opportunities for strengthened financial intermediation, increased capital flows, and expanded banking services to support Nigeria’s economic reforms and development priorities.

Uzoka-Anite reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to creating an enabling environment for global investors, noting that the planned entry of FAB reflects growing international confidence in Nigeria’s reforms and improving investment climate.

A background check on the Bank showed that First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) is the UAE’s largest bank, formed in 2017 by the merger of First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, it offers corporate, investment, and personal banking services across 20+ markets. FAB is recognized as one of the world’s safest institutions.

Aiming to be the best Arab bank for the Arab world, it recently reported a 22% increase in net profit for Q4 2024, driven by strong business volumes.

• President Bola Tinubu

A spate of painful reforms is beginning to show results.

When nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo, the elected president, set out to clean up the economy after years of mismanagement by military governments.

Initially dismissed by critics, by the end of his second term Mr Obasanjo’s liberal policies had tamed inflation, spurred investment and raised annual gdp growth to around 7 percent.

It didn’t last. Over the past decade gdp per person has fallen.

Yet evidence is now mounting that another stretch of “golden years”, as one analyst calls the period following Mr Obasanjo’s liberalisation, may be on the cards.

In the past two and a half years Bola Tinubu, who in Mr Obasanjo’s day was the governor of Lagos and was elected president in 2023, has been enacting his own set of structural reforms.

As he gears up to run for a second term in 2027, they may be starting to pay off.

It is difficult to overstate the mess Mr Tinubu inherited.

When he took office in 2023, the country’s central bank had $7 billion (equivalent to 1.4% of gdp at the time) in obligations it could not meet, prompting international investors to flee en masse.

The bank’s credibility had been dented by a recklessly loose monetary policy, its mismanagement of dwindling foreign-exchange reserves and efforts to maintain an unsustainable tiered exchange-rate system.

Poverty has risen. But it looks as though Mr Tinubu’s bitter medicine is helping.

In 2022 alone the cash-strapped government spent some $10 billion, equivalent to 2.2% of gdp, on a ruinous fuel subsidy.

To fix things, Mr Tinubu’s government got on with a package of drastic structural reforms. It abolished the fuel subsidy and abandoned that multi-tiered system of dollar-pegged exchange rates, largely allowing the naira to float.

The Central Bank aggressively tightened monetary policy to curb the resulting bout of inflation.

The government also moved to improve security in the Niger Delta and offered a range of tax incentives to investors to boost dwindling oil production.

Nearly three years on, Nigeria’s 230 million people, especially the poor and the middle class, are still reeling from increases in fuel and food prices.

Poverty has risen. But it looks as though Mr Tinubu’s bitter medicine is helping.

The annual inflation rate, which hit a nearly 30-year high of 34.8% in December 2024, fell to 15.2% in December 2025.

Growth is returning.

The IMF expects the economy to expand by 4.4% in 2026.

Following two steep devaluations in 2023, the naira has stabilised (see chart).

The Central Bank’s foreign-exchange reserves have risen to $46 billion, their highest level in seven years.

Improvements in macroeconomic stability are restoring investor confidence.

On January 22nd Shell, a British company, said it hopes in 2027 to finalise plans, with partners, to develop a $20 billion offshore oilfield that has been sitting untapped for over 20 years.

Exxon Mobil, an American firm, has committed $1.5 billion to deep water development until 2027.

Local business leaders are more upbeat, too.

Oil-and-gas production is rising, much of it driven by local firms plugging leaks and improving output in onshore projects in the Niger Delta, which has become safer thanks to Mr Tinubu’s focus on security there.

All this should give the government some fiscal breathing room, particularly as the cheaper naira begins to raise the competitiveness of Nigeria’s non-oil exports such as cocoa and cashew nuts.

Recent reforms to taxation and tax collection, Mr Tinubu’s latest project, should help improve revenues further in the coming years.

Falling inflation should eventually begin to ease the cost-of-living pain.

However, even optimists have plenty of reasons to be cautious.

Savings from the fuel subsidy have largely been spent on servicing the public debt, which is still rising as the government continues to borrow against future sales of oil to fund its deficit.

Currently, some 60% of revenues are consumed by debt service.

On January 20th Nigeria’s finance minister said the government hoped to borrow less this year, but current budget projections suggest that is not realistic.

“The government is broke.

There’s nothing to invest in the future, that’s the truth,” says Esili Eigbe of Escap, a Nigerian consultancy.

Unless the government cuts civil-service salaries, another big chunk of spending, or is able to restructure loans to make them cheaper, the extra revenue from recent tax reforms looks unlikely to be available for improving infrastructure or to pay for public health care and education.

“They’ve brought the deficit down, but they don’t seem to show any greater ability to get capital projects out of the door,“ says David Cowan, an economist at Citi, an American bank.

All this means that it will take a long time for ordinary Nigerians, who until now have mostly borne the pain of Mr Tinubu’s reforms, to feel any benefit.

Buying food has been a particular struggle, not just for the 42% of Nigerians who live on less than $3 a day, the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty, but also for the urban middle class.

The price of a kilo of rice has nearly quadrupled since May 2023, while wages have barely budged.

Even though inflation is now falling, many still struggle to afford enough to eat.

Mr Obasanjo’s reforms in the early 2000s aimed to increase economic dynamism and improve people’s lives by attracting fresh capital investment into newly privatised sectors.

By the end of his second term in 2007, domestic companies were worth $85 billion, up from $3 billion in 1999.

Mr Tinubu, by contrast, has so far focused on restoring stability and reviving the country’s ailing oil-and-gas sector. To bring about more golden years for Nigerians, he needs to go beyond that. ■

Credit: The Economist