The Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise how the two arms of economic management work together, in a move both sides describe as an attempt to make policy more coherent without eroding the bank’s independence.
The agreement was signed in Abuja on Friday. According to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, it is designed to strengthen coordination, improve data and information sharing, and align the management of the economy across the fiscal and monetary sides.
Oyedele said the framework would institutionalise coordination between the two authorities while preserving the CBN’s autonomy. “Good economic management requires independent institutions, but independence does not mean isolation,” he said, adding that fiscal and monetary authorities have distinct mandates but serve the same economy.
The MoU, he explained, would provide a more structured basis for regular engagement between the Ministry of Finance and the bank, building on existing arrangements such as the Economic Management Team and the National Economic Council. It covers the sharing of information on cash receipts, financing plans, credit flows and foreign exchange flows.
Data was a recurring theme. Oyedele said reliable and timely economic figures were central to better policy, particularly as the CBN moves towards an inflation targeting framework, and disclosed that the government was working with the National Bureau of Statistics to publish a Producer Price Index alongside the existing Consumer Price Index, as well as employment and productivity statistics. Such data, he said, would help policymakers detect inflationary pressure before it reaches consumers.
The minister also used the occasion to point to the external accounts, saying Nigeria recorded a balance of payments surplus of more than 5 billion dollars in 2025 and that external reserves had recently exceeded 74 billion dollars. The reserves figure sits well above the level published by the CBN itself, whose latest data put gross external reserves at about 54.6 billion dollars as at 14 September 2026, an eighteen year high. On the balance of payments, the CBN’s own provisional figures for 2025 recorded a surplus of about 4.23 billion dollars, down from 6.83 billion dollars in 2024, so the minister’s number falls within the broader range that has been cited for the external position.
Two of his other claims are supported by official trade data. Oyedele said non-oil exports outpaced oil exports for the first time in the third quarter of 2026, and that imports of refined petroleum products declined as domestic refining capacity rose. NBS Foreign Trade in Goods statistics show non-crude oil exports overtaking crude for the first time in at least six years as early as the second quarter of 2026, with non-crude shipments of about 14.11 trillion naira against 12.91 trillion naira in crude, a shift the bureau links to the ramp up of the Dangote refinery.
The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, described the signing as a significant milestone in efforts to strengthen macroeconomic management and sustainable growth. He said the MoU provided a structured framework for regular consultation, information exchange and policy coordination.
Cardoso said the arrangement would deepen collaboration in areas including government cash management, debt issuance planning, liquidity forecasting, macroeconomic analysis and periodic policy consultations. “It transforms a relationship built on practice into one anchored by clear processes and enduring institutional commitment,” he said.
The agreement matters because the relationship between the treasury and the central bank has been a live issue in Nigeria for years. Under the previous administration, the CBN’s financing of government through Ways and Means advances ran into tens of trillions of naira, a practice widely blamed for fuelling inflation and later restructured by the National Assembly. A formal MoU that sets out information sharing and consultation is, in part, an effort to move away from that history towards a more rules based interaction.
The timing also aligns with the CBN’s stated shift towards inflation targeting, a regime under which the bank commits to a public inflation goal and adjusts policy to meet it. That approach depends heavily on the quality and timeliness of data, which helps explain the emphasis on the Producer Price Index and the additional statistics the government says it is developing with the NBS.
What the MoU does not by itself change is the underlying pressure on households. Headline inflation stood at 15.43 per cent in July 2026 by NBS figures, but food inflation rose to 20.31 per cent in the same month, and the naira continues to trade around 1,322 to 1,329 to the dollar at the official window. Whether closer coordination between the Ministry of Finance and the CBN translates into steadier prices will depend on implementation, and neither institution has published the operational details or a timeline for the new framework.