Segun Adeleye
At summit, Worldstage president asks FG to seek help to end insecurity
A WELCOME ADDRESS BY MR SEGUN ADELEYE, PRESIDENT/CEO, WORLD STAGE LIMITED AT THE WORLDSTAGE ECONOMIC SUMMIT 2025 AT THE EVENT CENTER, NIGERIA EXCHANGE, CUSTOM STREET, LAGOS, ON FRIDAY NOVMBER 21, 2025
Protocol
Dr. Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director/CEO, Bank of Industry (BoI)
Mr Olanipekun Olukoyede , Executive Chairman , EFCC
Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)
Mr Segun Ajayi-Kadir, Director-General, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria
Mr. Adewale Smatt-Oyerinde, Director General, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association
Dr Abidemi Adegboye, Ph.D (Economics), Lecturer at University of Lagos
Distinguished guests
Distinguished publishers and other members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen.
It is a great honour and privilege to welcome you all to the WorldStage Economic Summit 2025 with the theme: ‘Tackling The Issue Of Low Productivity In Nigeria’.
It is very interesting to note today that we are discussing this theme coming from the backdrop that our theme for WES 2024 was ‘Nigeria: Setting a Stage For Business And Economic Recovery’.
If we ask whether the economy has recovered in one year since WES 2024, the answer we will likely get is yes. Nigeria’s economy has shown strong signs of recovery, marked by significant GDP growth, increased foreign reserves, and a more stable foreign exchange rate.
However, despite this macroeconomic recovery, challenges like high food inflation, widespread poverty, and the high cost of living persist for many citizens.
Between WES 2024 and now, four major tax reforms were enacted, specifically in June 2025 to improve revenue collection; the combination of high inflation and a weakened currency has severely eroded household purchasing power; many households are struggling to afford basic necessities, leading to changes in consumption patterns, such as rationing food or seeking cheaper alternatives.
The World Bank has projected cautious optimism, with growth expected to accelerate modestly in the coming years, assuming sustained monetary discipline and structural reforms.
This makes it easy for us to choose the theme for this year summit ‘Tackling The Issue Of Low Productivity In Nigeria’. The logic is that if we can get the economy to produce, high food inflation, widespread poverty, and the high cost of living will be checked.
What we currently have is that while many are working, almost half of Nigerians are estimated to be poor, living below the national poverty line with multidimensional poverty at 63% and income poverty at 40%, just because the right jobs are not available.
Flashing back again to our last year theme, if Nigeria’s economy is recovering, how do we get it to deliver higher productivity jobs to raise living standards?
With the evidence of structural transformation, there remains concerns that the pace is insufficient to propel industrial take-off as industry’s share of employment increasing only marginally over the past 20 years, while low-quality jobs characterized by high informality remains high at 92.6%.
It’s important that as we discuss low productivity today, we should not lose sight of the government reforms like subsidy removal, exchange rate unification aim to stabilize it; the macroeconomic reforms and tax changes to address these issues.
The question we should be able to answer with this summit is whether these reforms are effective enough or are there other alternatives to spur economic productivity?
As Nigeria’s real GDP grew by 3.19% in Q2 2024 and 4.23% in Q2 2025, some analysts project lower growth for 2025 due to factors like lower-than-expected oil production and insecurity.
Interestingly, insecurity is attracting more attention in recent time, including from abroad. Insecurity in parts of the country negatively affects economic activity. Economic productivity will be a mirage without security.
It will be helpful if the federal government can flow with the current momentum and grab the right strategy, including possible foreign assistance to finally end insecurity. With U.S President Donald Trump threatening to to launch attacks Nigeria due to insecurity related issues, I believe our government can engage him and agree on joint military exercises that will flush out the terrorists, after all if Boko Haram has been existing since the Olusegun Obasanjo administration of 1999 to 2007 and we are yet to see the end of it till now, we don’t need anyone to tell us again that we need help.
We will rely on the distinguished speakers and panelists at today’s summit to discuss evidence-based strategies to generate jobs, boost productivity and lift people out of poverty.
WES over the years has been consistent in addressing economic challenges through deliberation and recommendation of practicable solutions with public and private sector engagement in an innovation setting to inspire new thinking in business, policy formulation/implementation, economic reform and development.
I’m very hopeful that the outcome of our deliberations today will become part of the valuable ideas needed to move the Nigeria’s economy forward.
Thanks for coming.
God bless Nigeria.
SEGUN ADELEYE
Lagos, November 21, 2025
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