Nigeria is still trapped in a low growth regime where GDP expands slower than the population and remains quasi entirely driven by agriculture and telecoms. GDP growth was estimated at +2% in Q1 (population growth is +2.7%), meaning a negative growth per capita for the 14th quarter in a row, a poor performance that holds as well for non-oil GDP. Telecoms growth has basically contributed half (about +1pp) to non-oil GDP growth since Q2 2018 when the sector began to expand rapidly. Agriculture is adding another +0.8pp to growth (on average). A major setback is oil exports. Oil output has never recovered to the 2.1mn bbl/day last observed in 2012 and is currently hovering around 1.7mn bbl/day, since Nigeria has lost one of its main export destination as a result of shale oil development in the U.S. (which consumed half of Nigerian exports ten year ago and more or less nothing today). Overall, we expect Nigerian GDP growth to remain quite muted at +2.6% in 2019.
