The Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Dr. Nurudeen Zauro, said something on Thursday that should be front-page news but will probably get buried under 2027 election noise.“ From day one, Mr President actually set a target. He set a target of deepening Nigeria’s economic and financial sector to achieve a $1 trillion economy by the year 2030.”
A trillion dollars. By 2030. That’s six years from now. Nigeria’s GDP today sits around $500 billion, depending on which rebasing formula you use and whether oil prices cooperated that quarter. Zauro just told us the plan is to double it in six years.
Before you dismiss this as another politician making impossible promises, consider what’s actually being put in motion to back it up. Nigeria is hosting the RegTech Africa Conference and Expo in May 2026—a continental gathering designed to align regulatory frameworks, build cross-border payment infrastructure, and unlock the African Continental Free Trade Area’s $3.4 trillion market.
According to Zauro, it’s the implementation vehicle for what the Presidency calls the “Aso Accord on Economic and Financial Inclusion”—a framework linking trust, infrastructure, inclusion, and borderless policy to that trillion-dollar target.
And unlike most grand pronouncements from Aso Rock, this one comes with timelines, institutional backing, and a technical team that actually understands what words like “interoperability” and “regulatory alignment” mean.
The question isn’t whether the target is ambitious. It is. The question is whether the Presidency is serious enough to execute what it just announced.
Zauro used a metaphor that will annoy every critic of Tinubu’s economic reforms, but it’s uncomfortably accurate.
“I keep saying this: it takes a bold decision for a father who knows his child is sick to take him to the hospital, allow him to go through surgery, and come out hale and hearty. Nigeria has passed through a lot of reforms and difficult times. We know economic pressure is a global thing, but at this time we are on a healing journey.”
That’s one way to describe removing fuel subsidies, floating the naira, and forcing the economy to confront price realities it’s avoided for decades. The surgery hurt. Nigerians are still feeling the pain. Inflation is brutal. Transport costs have killed household budgets. Small businesses are struggling.
But here’s the part critics don’t want to acknowledge: Zauro claims the numbers are turning. “Nigerian numbers are changing. Things are becoming better; the numbers are turning. Investors are coming.”
Is he right?
Well, Shell just committed $20 billion in new investment. The NNPCL boss, Bayo Ojulari, confirmed $7 billion already deployed in the last eighteen months. Foreign portfolio investment is creeping back. Diaspora remittances hit record levels. The naira, after its brutal fall, is stabilising not recovering fully, but no longer in freefall.
Those are facts, not spin.
But facts don’t pay transport bills or reduce the cost of rice. So when Zauro talks about a “healing journey,” what he’s really saying is: “We know you’re hurting, we know the reforms are painful, but the patient is stabilising and we’re betting the long-term prognosis is growth.”
The problem? Nigerians have heard this story before. Structural Adjustment in the 1980s. Economic reforms in the 2000s. Every time, we’re told to endure the pain for future gain. And every time, the gains go to a connected few while the pain stays widespread.
So when Zauro says “things are becoming better,” he’s asking Nigerians to trust a process that historically hasn’t delivered for them. That’s a tough sell. And he knows it.
Let me make this concrete. Right now, there’s a woman in Aba let’s call her Chioma who makes quality textiles that Kenyan boutiques want to stock. She gets the orders. She has the capacity. But when it’s time to process payment, everything falls apart.
The cross-border transaction takes five to seven days. It costs 8% in fees. It requires three intermediary banks. And half the time, the payment gets flagged for “compliance review” and sits in limbo for two weeks while both sides scramble to provide documentation that regulators in different countries don’t recognize. So Chioma doesn’t bother. She stays local. She produces less. She earns less. She doesn’t hire the three additional tailors she could afford if the Kenyan market were accessible. Multiply Chioma by ten thousand entrepreneurs across Nigeria, and you start to understand what “fragmented regulations” and “weak interoperability” actually cost us.
If Zauro’s team delivers what they’re promising interoperable payment systems, mutual recognition of compliance documentation, and trusted digital identity frameworks Chioma processes Kenyan payment in 24 hours, pays 1.5% in fees, scales her business across East Africa, and hires those tailors.
That’s what a trillion-dollar economy looks like at ground level. Not conferences. Not policy papers. Chioma is hiring three more people because cross-border commerce suddenly makes economic sense.
And that’s the test. Can Zauro’s office make life tangibly better for the Chiomas of Nigeria, or is this just another framework that works on PowerPoint but dies in implementation?
One reason the Presidency is hosting the RegTech Africa Conference isn’t charity or continental goodwill.
It’s strategic positioning.“In terms of leadership to take advantage of AfCFTA, we are really where the numbers are today, and they are out there,” Zauro said. “The most important thing is the intentionality of the administration. Mr President and the Vice President have been all over the world canvassing for support, requesting collaboration and partnership.”
Intentionality. That’s the word he keeps coming back to. Not hope. Not aspiration. Intentionality. And intentionality means recognizing that Nigeria’s dominance in West Africa isn’t guaranteed anymore. Ghana is cleaning up its investment climate. Kenya is building a digital economy hub. Rwanda has become Africa’s go-to example of regulatory efficiency. Even smaller countries like Mauritius are attracting fintech companies that would have defaulted to Lagos ten years ago.
Nigeria still has the largest economy, the biggest population, and the most dynamic private sector. But we’ve been coasting on scale while other countries have been competing on speed, clarity, and execution.
AfCFTA, the African Continental Free Trade Area covering 1.4 billion people and $3.4 trillion in combined GDP is supposed to change the game. On paper, it creates a single market larger than the European Union by population. In practice, it’s been strangled by fragmented regulations, incompatible payment systems, and the kind of bureaucratic inertia that makes cross-border trade in Africa harder than trade with Europe.
We’ve seen this movie before. In 2018, the African Union launched the Single African Air Transport Market to liberalize aviation and create seamless travel across the continent. The communiqué was beautiful. The speeches were inspiring. Five years later, you still can’t book a direct Lagos-Nairobi flight without routing through Europe or paying prices that make international travel cheaper than intra-African routes.
That’s what happens when we announce grand visions without enforcement mechanisms, without accountability, and without the political will to force bureaucracies to actually cooperate.
The RegTech conference in May 2026 is Nigeria’s bid to position itself as the convening power that fixes those problems. Not by force. Not by throwing money around. But by hosting the conversation that aligns regulators, builds interoperable infrastructure, and creates the digital trust frameworks that let businesses operate across borders without needing a lawyer, a fixer, and six months of patience.
If Nigeria pulls that off, we’re not just participating in AfCFTA we’re leading it. And leading AfCFTA means Nigerian businesses get first access to $3.4 trillion in economic activity. If we don’t? Kenya or South Africa will. And Nigeria becomes the country with the most people and the least influence.
Zauro laid out the formula pretty clearly. “For us to achieve that, we have to build trust, we have to build infrastructure, we have to ensure inclusion and, of course, bring in policies that promote partnership and collaboration. That is the definition of the borderless economy.”Trust, infrastructure, inclusion, policy.
Those are the four pillars. Trust means investors and citizens believe the rules won’t change mid-game.
Inclusion means Chioma in Aba can access the Kenyan market as easily as Dangote can. It means rural producers can participate in the digital economy, not just watch from the sidelines.
Policy means getting Nigeria’s CBN, SEC, NITDA, customs, and every regulatory body to coordinate instead of contradicting each other, and then getting 54 African countries to agree on harmonized frameworks. Do we have any of this today? No. Can we build it by 2030? That’s what Zauro is betting on. And May 2026 is when we find out if that bet has any foundation.
Zauro made a point that every state governor should find threatening, though he phrased it diplomatically.
“If we can face these problems together, like the Presidency is trying to do and everybody joins us to solve them, then we probably don’t need anybody to help us.”
Read that again. He’s saying Nigeria has the talent, the innovation, the market size, and the resources to solve its own problems. What we don’t havee is coordination.That’s not just a policy observation. That’s a direct challenge.
If the federal government can create an investment climate that attracts $27 billion from Shell in eighteen months, what’s stopping governors from doing the same for mining, agriculture, and manufacturing in their states?
The Presidency is demonstrating that policy coordination and regulatory clarity can attract serious capital. If states can’t replicate that, they’ve run out of excuses.
Zauro revealed that Nigeria has something called the “Aso Accord on Economic and Financial Inclusion.”“That is even one of the reasons why we are seated in this room,” he said. “We are implementing the Aso Accord on Economic and Financial Inclusion. It speaks to commitment, it speaks to recognition of the importance of this sector, as well as partnership and collaboration.”
Zauro also said the inclusion agenda has been “elevated to the National Economic Council, where all the sub-nationals are.”That matters. Because Nigeria’s biggest policy problem isn’t usually the federal government. It’s getting 36 governors to actually implement what was agreed in Abuja.
“It is not enough to do policy at the centre; you must ensure that the policy goes to the sub-nationals so that every Nigerian is part of the policy and its implementation,” Zauro explained. “Our slogan has always been: no one is left behind.”No one is left behind. That’s aspirational language. The test is whether Kaduna’s regulatory framework recognises a digital identity credential issued in Lagos. Whether a payment processed in Enugu clears in Rivers without a three-day hold. Whether a startup licensed by the CBN can operate in all 36 states without needing 36 different approvals.
The organisers of RACE 2026 said they’re “deliberately curating the right resources from policymakers to innovators and operators to respond to sector-wide concerns.”
Fine. Here’s what success looks like.
By May 22, 2026 the conference’s closing day Nigeria should be able to demonstrate:One: A live, working interoperable payment system processing real transactions between Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa with full regulatory compliance and same-day settlement.Two: A memorandum of understanding signed by at least 15 African countries committing to mutual recognition of digital identity credentials with implementation timelines and accountability benchmarks.
Three: A regulatory sandbox framework agreed to by the central banks of ECOWAS member states, allowing fintech companies to test cross-border products in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.
Four: Funding commitments from African Development Bank and other development finance institutions to close the infrastructure gaps identified during the conference, with specific projects and timelines.
Anything less is just another talk-shop.
Hosting a conference is easy. Delivering enforceable agreements with measurable outcomes is hard.
The difference between those two determines whether Nigeria hits that trillion-dollar target or just adds another aspirational document to the archive.
May 2026 is the test. Either Nigeria demonstrates working cross-border payment systems, regulatory alignment, and policy coordination that 15 African countries actually adopt, or we prove once again that we’re better at hosting events than executing outcomes.
Zauro says the numbers are turning. Investors are coming. Nigeria is on a trajectory to success.The trillion-dollar target isn’t the problem. The problem is whether the Presidency understands that announcing a goal and achieving it are two completely different things.
And whether Zauro’s office working with Vice President Shettima, the CBN, SEC, NITDA, and 36 state governors can actually coordinate long enough to make it happen.If they can? Nigeria reclaims continental leadership and doubles its economy in six years. Chioma in Aba scales her textile business across East Africa. Thousands of fabrication yards idle come back to life. Fintech companies expand across borders without spending six months navigating contradictory regulations.
If they can’t? We host a nice conference, take good photos, issue a communiqué, and go back to explaining why a country with 200 million people and massive natural resources can’t seem to execute anything.May 20-22, 2026.Mark the date.Either Nigeria shows up ready to lead a continent, or we prove we’re only ready to host lunch.
