NESG to push growth beyond Lagos, Abuja at 32nd Economic Summit

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) will make the geographic spread of economic activity a central issue at the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES #32), arguing that growth concentrated in a few cities is holding back the country as a whole.

The summit, themed “Growth that Works: Delivering Jobs, Productivity and Shared Prosperity,” will hold on October 26 and 27, 2026, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. Its “Scale Nigeria” sub-theme will focus on subnational growth, regional value chains and inclusive development.

In a statement, the NESG said a few states and cities, including Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt, “concentrate the bulk of formal economic activity, financial flows, and investment,” while large parts of the country remain “economically marginalised.”

The group framed the issue as economic rather than political. “Concentrated growth limits Nigeria’s overall competitive potential. Distributed growth unlocks it,” the statement said.

It listed the costs of concentration as overloaded and expensive infrastructure in dominant cities, underused infrastructure elsewhere, and migration of labour to economic hubs. It also cited thin markets in remote and peri-urban areas that leave consumers reliant on long-distance supply chains.

The NESG said states should build on their differing strengths. It pointed to rice potential in Kebbi and Niger, horticulture and cold-chain prospects in Plateau, tourism and cocoa in Cross River, and Kano’s manufacturing base and proximity to Sahel and West African markets. It added that Ondo and Delta have solid minerals and timber.

Regional value chains will get particular attention. These would link farmers in one state to processing plants in another, then to logistics networks, consumption markets and coastal export terminals. The summit will examine how the government, the private sector and development finance institutions can fund the roads, rail, warehousing, power, water and market information systems such chains need.

On governance, the NESG said it will review the investment climate across the states, covering land administration, regulatory consistency, dispute resolution and industrial policy. State governments, it said, will be challenged to compete for investment “not through unsustainable fiscal concessions” but through the quality of their governance and institutions.

The summit will also bring federal and state governments, development finance institutions and private infrastructure investors together on how to finance and maintain the infrastructure a more distributed economy requires.