Nigeria’s Economic Recovery & Growth Plan: Tackling the Macroeconomic Downside Risks

Abstract

The Federal Government of Nigeria launched an economic plan tagged the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP.) in 2016. The ERGP is a medium-term economic framework meant to stimulate the recessive Nigerian economy back to sustainable, accelerated development and restore economic growth in the medium term (2017 - 2020). Despite the robust provisions of the Plan, the presence of inherent and emerging risks poses significant uncertainty in many circles over the prospects of a successful implementation of the Plan. Premised on the theoretical framework of the Keynesian stimulus to economic revival, the paper employed introspective and retrospective methodology and inductively and deductively arrived at conclusions. This paper identifies the downside risks associated with each objective of the ERGP like impending elections in 2019, militancy in the Niger Delta area and policy inconsistency which had the potential to frustrate the achievement of the goals of the Plan. The paper concludes that the ERGP is a needed reform and the risks capable of frustrating it must be tackled. It is suggested that the Nigerian economy should be restructured, Monetary and fiscal policy sustainability should prevail, and the ERGP should be reviewed and updated annually. There should also be an organ responsible for ideological re orientation of Nigerians particularly in the more restive areas like the Niger Delta area.