Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product expanded by 4.43 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, up from 4.23 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
The 0.20 percentage-point improvement points to a modest pick-up in overall economic activity. Growth was driven by stronger performances in agriculture and services, while the industrial sector slowed markedly compared with the same period a year earlier.
Sector Performance
Agriculture grew by 4.39 per cent in real terms in the second quarter of 2026, compared with 2.82 per cent in the second quarter of 2025 and 3.15 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. The sector expanded 17.80 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis and accounted for 26.15 per cent of real GDP, slightly below its 26.17 per cent share a year earlier but above the 23.16 per cent recorded in the preceding quarter.
Services remained the fastest-growing of the three major sectors, advancing 4.60 per cent year-on-year from 3.94 per cent in the second quarter of 2025. Industry, by contrast, posted growth of 3.96 per cent, down sharply from 7.46 per cent in the corresponding quarter of 2025.
In nominal terms, aggregate GDP stood at N119.29 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, compared with N100.73 trillion a year earlier — a year-on-year increase of 18.43 per cent that reflects both volume expansion and price changes.
Oil and Non-Oil Contributions
The National Bureau of Statistics continued to classify the economy into oil and non-oil segments, with the latter remaining dominant. Average daily crude oil production rose to 1.72 million barrels per day in the second quarter of 2026 from 1.68 million barrels in the same period of 2025 and 1.55 million barrels in the first quarter of 2026.
The oil sector grew 7.31 per cent year-on-year in real terms, well below the 20.46 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2025 but higher than the 2.57 per cent growth of the first quarter of 2026. On a quarter-on-quarter basis it expanded 10.91 per cent. Oil’s contribution to real GDP edged up to 4.16 per cent from 4.05 per cent a year earlier and 3.92 per cent in the preceding quarter.
The non-oil sector advanced 4.31 per cent year-on-year, compared with 3.64 per cent in the second quarter of 2025 and 3.94 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. Growth was driven mainly by agriculture, information and communication, real estate, trade, financial and insurance services, manufacturing and construction.
External Assessments and Outlook
Nigeria’s economy had grown 4.07 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2025. Global institutions have expressed cautious optimism about the country’s trajectory. The World Bank has maintained a 4.4 per cent growth forecast for 2027 and earlier upgraded its 2026 estimate to 4.4 per cent from 3.7 per cent projected in June 2025. S&P Global Ratings upgraded Nigeria’s long-term foreign and local currency credit ratings to ‘B’ from ‘B-’.
In April the International Monetary Fund reduced its 2026 growth forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 4.1 per cent from an earlier 4.4 per cent projection, citing mounting global and domestic pressures. Moody’s, meanwhile, revised Nigeria’s sovereign outlook to “positive” from “stable”, pointing to stronger foreign exchange reserves and better-than-expected economic growth as factors improving the country’s capacity to withstand external shocks. The agency expects the current account surplus to remain sizeable even if oil prices fall materially, while higher crude prices linked to the Middle East conflict have supported Nigeria’s external position.
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has separately projected that escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East could deliver a substantial oil revenue windfall, potentially reaching as high as N30.2 trillion if the conflict between Iran and Israel becomes prolonged.
