The National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) recent report of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Q2 2025 paints a picture of economic progress, but the reality for most citizens remains one of hardship, unemployment, and rising poverty.
Development Diaries reports that the NBS’s latest figures show that Nigeria’s GDP rose by 4.23 percent year-on-year in real terms in the second quarter of 2025.
According to the bureau, the performance was stronger than the 3.48 per cent growth recorded in the same period of 2024, showing that the economy gained momentum despite persistent structural challenges.
It also explained that the quarterly estimates followed the rebasing of GDP using 2019 as the base year, allowing comparisons to track the pace of expansion across sectors.
However, the disconnect between macroeconomic data and citizens’ welfare is becoming increasingly glaring.
For instance, unemployment statistics claiming a rate of about four percent are simply inconsistent with the visible reality of mass underemployment, precarious jobs, and a swelling informal sector where survival, not prosperity, remains the norm.
Like the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has pointed out, the announcement of GDP growth highlights a long-standing gap between government statistics and the lived experiences of ordinary Nigerians.
Development is not just about expanding numbers on a chart, it is about how those numbers reflect in people’s daily lives.
If workers still cannot afford decent housing, if families are skipping meals, and if graduates are roaming the streets jobless, then growth has not translated into development. Growth without improved livelihoods is merely statistical window-dressing.
True development should mean more decent jobs, stronger purchasing power for workers, and improved access to education, healthcare, and social protection. Without these, GDP expansion is little more than a mathematical illusion.
Moreover, while the oil sector’s rebound and strong performance in transportation, communication, and utilities helped drive this growth, these gains do not reach the majority of citizens.
Oil profits rarely trickle down to ordinary workers, and even sectors that are growing, like finance or ICT, employ only a small fraction of the labour force.
Nigeria’s GDP may have risen on the back of higher crude oil output and growth in a few sectors, but what about the smallholder farmers displaced by insecurity, the teachers whose salaries remain unpaid, or the health workers whose allowances are still pending?
Without social investment and redistribution mechanisms, growth figures only enrich elite narratives while leaving workers behind.
For Nigeria’s growth to become meaningful development, investments must be channelled into agriculture, manufacturing, and social services, sectors that directly impact the lives of millions and create broad-based prosperity.
Development Diaries calls on the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labour and Employment, and the NBS to realign economic policy and reporting with the lived realities of citizens.
Numbers must be honest, credible, and people-focused, because playing politics with statistics erodes trust and undermines effective planning.
