TEST 1
Dollar generation
Can Nigeria earn foreign exchange rather than rent it?
Every other ambition is downstream of this one. A country that does not earn dollars borrows them, and the borrowing shows up as interest consuming the revenue that would have paid for everything else.
- 1.1A quantified target for non-oil foreign exchange earnings, with a timetable.
- 1.2An explicit treatment of the balance between portfolio and direct investment, and what the programme does to shift it.
- 1.3A named instrument on remittances, services exports or both, beyond an expression of intent.
Benchmark: in the first half of 2026 Nigeria took in $2.18bn of direct investment against $13.12bn of portfolio investment, six to one, on the CBN balance of payments. Nigeria earns $242 of goods exports per person per year against Vietnam’s $4,676. UNCTAD on commodity dependence, which affects two-thirds of the developing world.
TEST 2
Fiscal room for industrial policy
Industrial policy runs on financial instruments. Does Nigeria have room to use any?
UNCTAD finds that developed economies run industrial policy through grants, state loans and investment rules at a scale developing countries cannot match, which is why developing countries outside China fall back on trade policy. Nigeria’s room is close to nil.
- 2.1States a trajectory for debt service as a share of revenue, with a target.
- 2.2Names a revenue measure with an estimated yield.
- 2.3Names an expenditure reduction with a figure attached, rather than a commitment to cut waste.
Benchmark: interest alone at 53.7 per cent of federal revenue in 2026, IMF projection. Tax at 8.2 per cent of GDP against an African average of 16.1 per cent.
TEST 3
Terms of capital
Does Nigeria set conditions on investment, or take it on any terms?
The highest return per unit of political cost of the six. Conditioning investment requires no money, only the willingness to set terms, and Nigeria already holds the domestic capital it keeps saying it lacks.
- 3.1Commits to attaching local content, technology transfer or supplier linkage conditions to foreign investment.
- 3.2States a position on managing volatile capital flows, in either direction.
- 3.3Names an instrument to move domestic pension, insurance or savings capital into productive assets.
Benchmark: UNCTAD is explicit that developing states can condition foreign investment on linkages, technology transfer and local value added. Nigeria conditions none of these outside oil and gas. Pension assets of ₦31.8trn, 56 per cent of it in federal government securities.
TEST 4
Strategic sector position
Where does Nigeria intend to compete, and what does it intend to own?
High value and long horizon, which is why it sits below the three above. A president cannot build a semiconductor industry in four years. A president can decide which sectors the country is actually trying to enter, and stop pretending about the rest.
- 4.1Names the contested sectors Nigeria will compete in, and by implication those it will not.
- 4.2Commits to moving beyond extraction or assembly in at least one named sector, and names the mechanism.
- 4.3Ties power, logistics or digital infrastructure to the named sectors, rather than listing infrastructure generically.
Benchmark: developed economies capture roughly 70 per cent of global greenfield investment in strategic sectors; developing economies lead only in critical minerals, where they export before adding value. Nigeria holds 215.19 TCF of gas on a 2P basis and exports LNG equivalent to about 67 per cent of nameplate capacity. Distributors receive 23 per cent of installed grid capacity.
TEST 5
Regional anchoring
Nigeria is the only West African state with the scale to anchor the region. What holds it?
Live and urgent, and Nigeria is losing the region by default rather than by decision.
- 5.1A named response to the Sahel states’ departure and the duty they now levy on bloc goods.
- 5.2An AfCFTA implementation commitment with a date, going beyond ratification.
- 5.3Commits to sharing something Nigeria has built, in payments, identity or power, with the region.
Benchmark: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger left ECOWAS effective 29 January 2025 and now levy a 0.5 per cent duty on goods from the bloc, humanitarian aid excepted. UNCTAD on rising economies anchoring regionalism by sharing what they have built, with India’s digital public infrastructure shared across 23 countries and Brazil’s Pix extended across South America. Measured across the twelve countries still in the bloc, Nigeria’s share of ECOWAS GDP has fallen from 77 per cent in 2019 to 51 per cent in 2026.
TEST 6
Geopolitical positioning
Does Nigeria have a declared doctrine, or does it hedge by accident?
Real, and the most declaratory of the six. Scored because a country that has never written down who it aligns with on what will keep discovering its position by surprise.
- 6.1States who Nigeria aligns with, on what, and where it stays non-aligned.
- 6.2Names different partners for different sectors, rather than a single relationship.
- 6.3Treats energy self-sufficiency as a security question and not only a price question.
Benchmark: UNCTAD on sectoral multi-alignment, worked through the Türkiye case. Countries hedge across sectors, cooperate with competitors on technology, and pursue autonomy in energy. Positioning is itself a form of agency.