The All Progressives Congress (APC) has unveiled an ambitious economic blueprint for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, targeting a $1 trillion Nigerian economy by 2030 through massive infrastructure development, expanded trade, industrialisation, energy investment and human-capital development.
The National Chairman of the party, Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, said the administration was laying the foundations for the target through reforms designed to stabilise the economy, expand productive capacity and attract investment.
Yilwatda spoke on Tuesday while representing President Tinubu as Special Guest of Honour at the second edition of the Asiwaju Scorecard Series/Asiwaju Policy Roundtable organised by the APC Professional Forum.
He said the President inherited an economy weakened by fuel subsidy distortions, multiple foreign-exchange windows, weak revenue mobilisation, foreign-exchange shortages, mounting debt-service obligations and years of inadequate investment in infrastructure.
According to him, the decision to remove the petrol subsidy and reform the foreign-exchange market was therefore unavoidable if Nigeria was to escape the cycle of fiscal pressure and economic distortions.
Yilwatda cited what he described as improving economic indicators, including gross external reserves of about $52.7 billion as of August 2026, growth in consolidated non-oil revenue from approximately N13.63 trillion in 2023 to N16.4 trillion in the first two quarters of 2026, real GDP growth of 4.43 per cent in Q2 2026, and a decline in inflation to about 15.4 per cent.
“These figures do not mean that our economic challenges have disappeared, but they demonstrate that the direction of travel has changed,” he said.
But the APC chairman acknowledged that macroeconomic stability alone would not be enough.
“The ultimate test is when stability translates into cheaper food, more jobs, affordable credit, reliable electricity and greater purchasing power for Nigerians,” he said.
Yilwatda said the administration’s $1 trillion ambition should not be reduced to a headline economic figure but viewed as a strategy to transform Nigeria into a major production, manufacturing, logistics and export hub.
At the heart of the proposal is an integrated five-port maritime and logistics corridor linking major deep-sea ports in Lagos, Ondo, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Cross River through modern rail and road networks.
He proposed the development of interconnected economic corridors capable of linking Nigeria’s ports to production centres in the interior and markets across West, Central and North Africa.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Super Highway, he said, could provide a major coastal road spine, while rail and road networks would connect the maritime gateways to inland commercial centres and neighbouring countries.
The Western Corridor would link the coast to the interior through the Lagos-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano rail corridor, complemented by the proposed Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway.
The Eastern Corridor would similarly connect eastern maritime gateways through the Port Harcourt-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano rail corridor and the proposed Calabar-Maiduguri Trans-Sahara Super Highway.
Yilwatda said the eventual objective should be to connect Nigeria’s maritime gateways to landlocked markets in Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Sudan and the Central African Republic.
“This is how Nigeria can move beyond being simply a coastal trading nation to becoming the maritime gateway and logistics hub of West and Central Africa,” he said.
He described the infrastructure strategy as more than a transportation programme.
“It is a trade architecture,” he declared.
According to him, the corridors could stimulate investments in logistics, warehousing, freight forwarding, customs, banking, insurance, manufacturing, distribution and agro-processing.
He urged the government to deliberately establish industrial parks, export-processing zones, logistics parks, agro-processing clusters and manufacturing centres along the corridors.
“Where rail reaches an agricultural region, processing industries should follow. Where it reaches mineral resources, processing and manufacturing should follow. Where dry ports are established, logistics and distribution businesses should develop around them,” he said.
Yilwatda also identified expanded rail connectivity towards Maradi and the wider Sahel as potentially transformative for Nigeria’s regional trade ambitions.
He argued that improved rail connectivity would give Nigerian businesses easier access to neighbouring markets while ensuring that the economic activities generated by cross-border trade—including customs, banking, insurance, logistics, manufacturing and distribution—are increasingly domiciled in Nigeria.
“If you are a businessman in Nigeria, the rail to Maradi will ensure that you can trade with all the neighbouring countries,” he said.
He urged northern governors to regard the emerging transportation corridors as instruments of economic transformation rather than merely road and rail projects.
“These corridors can become pathways to the development of a billion-dollar economy,” he said.
Gas, industry and the AKK pipeline
The APC chairman said the infrastructure ambition could not succeed without reliable and affordable energy.
He identified Nigeria’s gas reserves as a critical foundation for industrialisation, particularly through the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline.
According to him, the AKK project should be viewed not merely as a pipeline for transporting gas but as an enabler of electricity generation, fertiliser production, manufacturing, transportation and household energy supply.
He advocated the deliberate location of fertiliser plants, manufacturing facilities and other energy-intensive industries around major infrastructure corridors to create integrated industrial clusters.
Yilwatda also defended the administration’s investments in education, skills development and access to credit, arguing that the $1 trillion ambition would ultimately depend on the productive capacity of Nigerians.
He cited the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), saying it was designed to prevent financial constraints from denying qualified young Nigerians access to higher education.
Drawing from his experience as a former university lecturer, he said he had witnessed capable students abandon their education because their families could not afford school fees.
“Even if you don’t like President Tinubu, your children can access the fund and access higher education,” he said.
He argued that reducing the financial burden of education on households would also free resources for other productive activities.
The APC chairman also cited skills-development and digital-training initiatives as measures aimed at preparing young Nigerians for opportunities in the global digital economy.
Credit schemes for small and medium-sized businesses, he added, were intended to enable Nigerians to establish and expand businesses and create employment.
Yilwatda said the administration’s economic strategy also extends to healthcare and solid minerals.
He highlighted investments in cancer treatment infrastructure and maternal healthcare, arguing that improved healthcare was essential to building a productive population.
He also described solid minerals as a major opportunity for economic diversification, investment and employment.
He said Nigeria must move away from the traditional model of extracting and exporting raw materials and instead develop domestic processing capacity to capture more value from its mineral resources.
Earlier, the Chairman of the APC Professional Forum, Alhaji Isa Yuguda, described the Scorecard Series as a platform for party members, policymakers and government officials to explain their contributions to the administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Yuguda singled out fuel subsidy removal as one of the administration’s most consequential decisions, conceding that the policy had imposed immediate hardship but arguing that its long-term benefits would outweigh the short-term costs.
He said successive administrations had struggled to dismantle a subsidy regime that had become associated with leakages, opacity and alleged abuse.
According to him, the removal of the subsidy has expanded the fiscal resources available to federal and state governments for infrastructure and other development priorities.
Yuguda therefore warned against attempts to return to the old subsidy system as Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections.
He argued that political parties and candidates should be judged on the credibility and sustainability of their economic policies rather than promises that could reverse difficult reforms.
He specifically cautioned against proposals to restore the old subsidy regime, saying such a move could return the country to the fiscal and governance problems associated with the previous system.
The APC’s economic pitch comes as the Tinubu administration increasingly seeks to frame its reforms not simply as measures to stabilise the economy, but as the foundation for a structural transformation capable of taking Nigeria into the ranks of the world’s largest economies by the end of the decade.
