VP Shettima Tasks Governors to Move Beyond GDP Figures and Make Growth Feel Real for Everyday Nigerians

Vice President Kashim Shettima has sent a clear and urgent message to Nigeria’s 36 state governors: macroeconomic success is meaningless if it doesn’t put food on the tables of the common man.

Opening the National Economic Council (NEC) Conference in Abuja on Monday, the Vice President told a room full of the nation’s most powerful political leaders that the time for “growth for growth’s sake” is over. Delivering a keynote address that set the tone for the 2026–2030 National Development Plan, Shettima warned that the government’s work is “incomplete” as long as progress remains a headline figure rather than a household reality.

“The inclusive growth on our radar is not an exercise in sloganeering,” the Vice President stated firmly. “We have confronted the macroeconomic obstacles before us. What remains is to ensure that progress filters down to the everyday lives of our people. It is no longer enough to measure progress by GDP figures alone. We must ask harder questions: How does this growth transform lives? How does it uplift communities?”

The two-day retreat, which serves as a strategic “alignment session” between the federal and state governments, comes at a time when Nigeria is recording record trade surpluses and rising foreign reserves. However, Shettima emphasized that the “State of Harmony” the administration seeks is one where a farmer in Makurdi or an entrepreneur in Aba feels the same economic pulse as a corporate mogul in Lagos.

The VP described the NEC as the engine room of the “Renewed Hope” agenda, insisting that Nigeria’s future will be decided by the choices made in state capitals, not just in the hollows of Aso Rock.

As the governors move into technical sessions on fiscal coordination and investment mobilization, the mandate from the Presidency is clear: turn the “Renewed Hope” plan into a “Renewed Reality” for the over 200 million Nigerians waiting for the dividends of reform.