A professor of economics at the University of Lagos, Babatunde Wasiu Adeoye, has warned that Nigeria’s economy is trapped in prolonged stagnation and faces further decline without urgent and coordinated reforms.
Delivering his inaugural lecture on Wednesday at the university’s Distance Learning Institute, Adeoye described the country’s current economic state as a “miry clay” marked by high inflation, currency devaluation, rising unemployment, weak institutions, and declining productivity.
He said Nigeria’s overreliance on primary commodities, coupled with widespread corruption and mounting debt, has created conditions that make recovery difficult without a deliberate national strategy. To reverse the trend, Adeoye proposed a policy framework he called the “3-by-5 Auxiliary Gear System,” which centres on three priority sectors—agriculture, manufacturing, and services—and five supporting pillars: infrastructure, human capital, institutional reform, innovation, and international cooperation.
He argued that only a coordinated application of these measures would enable Nigeria to shift from economic drift to sustainable growth, diversification, and reduced inequality. “The only panacea to our economic conundrum is to engage this comprehensive approach,” he said, warning that without reform, development will remain out of reach. The lecture was the 17th in the university’s 2024/2025 academic session.
