Policy on the Run: Currency Re-denomination and Bank Manipulation

Abstract

By 2006, the Nigerian economy had finally taken off on a path of near-sustainable growth, even adjusting for the spurious growth in the banking sector. With the average annual growth rate of the Nigerian economy shooting from less than 3 per cent in the period 1994–9 to nearly 4 per cent between 1999 and 2003 and up to 6 per cent in the period 2003–7, there were several indications that the economy might finally have entered a recovery phase. Driven by the non-oil sector, with the average growth rate doubling in the five years up to 2007, industries such as telecommunications had become the fastest growing.