Forty years after Nigeria adopted the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), labour leaders, economists, civil society organisations and development experts have concluded that the country's reliance on market-driven reforms has not delivered the promised industrialisation, employment or shared prosperity. The verdict came on Thursday, July 16, in Abuja at a high-level conference titled "Forty Years of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria: History, Impact and the Way Forward," convened by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre) alongside ActionAid Nigeria, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), CITAD, CISLAC and other partner organisations.
Nigeria's Unfinished Structural Transformation
Dr Otive Igbuzor, founding executive director of Centre, opened proceedings by noting that many current reforms, including exchange-rate liberalisation, fuel subsidy removal and public sector restructuring, closely mirror the prescriptions introduced under SAP in 1986. He argued that economic reforms must be measured not by headline macroeconomic figures but by their capacity to create jobs, reduce poverty, strengthen institutions and restore public confidence. "Whether one regards SAP as a necessary response to an economic crisis or as the beginning of many of our developmental challenges, there is no doubt that it fundamentally altered the direction of Nigeria's economy and society," Igbuzor said.
Keynote and Findings
Delivering the keynote on behalf of political economist Prof Adebayo Olukoshi, Egghead Odewale of AIPCTA said present-day policy debates on subsidy removal, privatisation and debt sustainability are inseparable from SAP's legacy, describing the programme as perhaps the most consequential economic reform in Nigeria's post-independence history. ActionAid Nigeria's Head of Programmes and Policy, Celestine Odo, presented findings from the organisation's post-2023 subsidy removal assessments, which showed that many households can no longer consistently afford three meals a day. "The economy may be growing on paper, but poverty and inequality are increasing. That kind of growth has no human face," Odo said. He rejected arguments that social safety nets could salvage the model, insisting that its core ideology places markets above people.
Experts Urge Return to State-Led Development
Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Dauda Garuba, linked the deterioration of public education and healthcare directly to SAP-era reforms that commercialised social services. "Markets are driven by profit, while governance is driven by service. Government cannot be run with the ethics of the market," he said, urging Nigeria to rebuild state institutions. Pro-democracy activist Ayo Obe observed an unmistakable continuity between SAP and the Tinubu administration's current policy direction. "The floating of the naira and fuel subsidy removal are core principles of SAP. President Tinubu's reforms are another attempt to see whether Nigeria can implement SAP and get it right," Obe said. He added that countries including China, Japan, Singapore and Rwanda industrialised through deliberate state intervention rather than market forces alone.
Way Forward
The conference concluded that neither the pre-SAP state-led model nor orthodox neoliberalism offers a complete answer, calling on policymakers to pursue nationally driven, socially inclusive reforms that balance market efficiency with strategic government investment, while placing the welfare of citizens at the centre of economic planning. Participants also identified the African Continental Free Trade Area as a vehicle for building stronger industrial capacity and regional value chains.
