Trending 
Investors in Nigeria face an average approval timeline of 10.9 months, with regulatory bottlenecks contributing to project delays or abandonment in 70.8% of cases, according to a new diagnostic report by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
The report, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union, found that while Nigeria has a comprehensive institutional framework for investment coordination, these institutions are not functioning as a coherent system.
It found that regulatory approvals are the main operational bottleneck, identified as the weakest stage by 47.1% of respondents and the stage with the longest delays by 80.0%.
“Coordination failures have economic consequences,” NESG CEO Dr. Tayo Aduloju wrote in the report’s foreword.
“Delayed approvals can raise project costs, weaken financing assumptions and postpone employment. Inadequate preparation can leave a promising opportunity without the documentation, demand assessment or risk allocation needed to attract capital.”
Based on interviews with 24 key informants and over 100 stakeholders, the report found significant issues with institutional overlap, responsibility gaps, and divergence between formal roles and actual practice.
“Formal role clarity at the institutional level is relatively strong,” the report stated.
“However, this does not translate into equivalent system-level clarity.”
It added that 73.9% of valid responses identified institutional role overlap, while 59.1% cited a high divergence between formal and actual roles.
To address these challenges, the NESG proposed the ALIGN Investment Coordination Reform Package, comprising five pillars and thirteen recommendations.
The report recommends strengthening the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) as the federal coordination hub, establishing a national registration framework for state Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs), and developing an interoperable digital platform for tracking investment journeys.
The report emphasises that the goal is not to create new institutions, but to improve integration among existing ones.
“The evidence supports strengthening existing coordination arrangements, clarifying ownership, integrating processes, improving accountability and reducing dependence on informal escalation,” the report said.
It also noted that while investor interface effectiveness was rated at 3.73/5, process predictability was lower at 3.08/5, indicating that investors may eventually navigate individual processes but remain uncertain about how requirements will interact.
“Reform success should ultimately be measured by investment outcomes, not coordination activity,” the report concluded.
