Nigeria aims to cut inflation to low single digits before the end of \u200b2027, paving the way for sharply lower interest \u200crates that could lower borrowing costs and support growth, Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele said this Monday.<\/p>\n
“If you are growing \u200bat 4.43% and borrowing at close to 30%, \u200bimagine what is possible when you borrow at \u2060single-digit rates,” Oyedele said.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate is stuck \u200bat around 15% with the benchmark interest rate at \u200b23%, keeping cost-of-living pressures high just months before a national election.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Nigeria economic summit, Oyedele said the government’s reforms were \u200balready delivering benefits but that authorities wanted to \u200baccelerate gains so that household incomes rise faster than prices.<\/p>\n
Lower inflation \u200cand \u2060interest rates would unlock investment and accelerate growth in Africa’s most populous country, he said.<\/p>\n
Oyedele said policymakers were open to changing course on the reforms where \u200bevidence showed measures \u200bwere ineffective, \u2060but urged critics to engage constructively with policy details rather than rely on “emotion” \u200bor incomplete narratives.<\/p>\n
Since taking office in 2023, \u200bPresident Bola \u2060Tinubu has scrapped fuel subsidies, devalued the naira and pushed through reforms that have boosted public finances, foreign \u2060reserves \u200band investor confidence. But the \u200bmeasures have also triggered Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33673,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-49060","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Nigeria's headline inflation rate is stuck \u200bat around 15% with the benchmark interest rate at \u200b23%.","published_date":"","news_description":"Nigeria's headline inflation rate is stuck \u200bat around 15% with the benchmark interest rate at \u200b23%.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49063,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49060\/revisions\/49063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=49060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}