Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product rose by 4.23 per cent year-on-year in real terms in the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest figures released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics.
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.
The bureau 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.
The report read, “Following the rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product using 2019 as the base year, previous quarterly GDP estimates were benchmarked to the rebased annual estimates to align the old series with the new rebased estimates.
“This procedure provided a new quarterly GDP series, which is compared to the 2025 second quarter estimates. Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23 per cent (year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter of 2025.
This growth rate is higher than the 3.48 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2024.”
But senior officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress challenged the credibility of the figures, arguing that they failed to capture the worsening conditions faced by workers and households.
“When we talk about GDP growth, the key question is how it impacts the lives of the people.
If the figure is in doubt, or if it does not translate into better living conditions, then it is meaningless. That is what we call growth without development,” an NLC official, who spoke to one of our correspondents in confidence due to lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, stated.
The official added, “Right now, many people are being manipulated because of upcoming elections. The GDP figures being quoted are based on the 2019 rebasing. But when statistics do not reflect realities on the ground, they are useless to the citizenry. Any economic indicator that fails to capture reality loses credibility.”
The President of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo, did not respond to a request for comment.
Another senior NLC official took aim at Nigeria’s reported unemployment data, which put the jobless rate at about four per cent. “That is a falsehood, a construct of neoliberalism to mask the impact of failed policies being pushed on developing countries,” the official said. “We know unemployment is far higher than four per cent. So as long as these statistics fail to reflect reality, they are useless for economic planning.”
The union leader added, “Do you see the 4.23 per cent GDP growth in your life? I don’t. Conditions are worsening, workers are suffering, yet officials claim the economy is growing. The economy is not growing. An economy must be managed for the people. When it is not, politicians invent stories to justify their claims, and this is one of them.”
