Nigeria’s manufacturing sector is still waiting for the relief lawmakers promised when the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 was signed into law, according to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, which says its members continued facing a maze of multiple tax collectors and regulatory agencies well into the second quarter of 2026.
The finding comes from MAN’s Manufacturers CEO Confidence Index report for Q2 2026, which paints a picture of a reform that hasn’t yet translated into practical change on the ground. Director-General Segun Ajayi-Kadir was direct about the gap between policy intent and lived experience. “Manufacturers complained that they were still met with multiple tax collectors and regulators in Q2 2026. It follows that the implementation of the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 is yet to achieve its objective of relieving manufacturers of the burden of taxes and levies,” he said.
Beyond taxation, the broader report suggests Nigeria’s business environment remains largely unfriendly to manufacturing growth. Of all the indicators MAN tracked, only local sourcing of raw materials showed meaningful improvement during the quarter, and even that bright spot comes with a significant caveat: the association warned that worsening insecurity in parts of the country could erode those gains going forward. According to MAN, the shift toward local sourcing has been driven less by deliberate industrial strategy and more by necessity, with persistent foreign exchange constraints pushing manufacturers to find inputs domestically rather than relying on imports. Even so, MAN maintained that excessive regulation and overlapping tax obligations continue to weigh heavily on the sector overall.
The report also captured a somewhat mixed financial picture for manufacturers. Sales volumes ticked up modestly during the quarter, but that gain was largely offset by rising production, distribution, and logistics costs that continued to squeeze profit margins. Meanwhile, other core indicators, capacity utilisation, production levels, investment, and employment, remained largely flat, suggesting the sector is treading water rather than genuinely expanding.
On the foreign exchange front, MAN acknowledged that recent reforms have helped bring some stability to the naira, but stressed that inadequate access to foreign currency remains a persistent bottleneck for manufacturing operations that depend on imported inputs or equipment.
Rounding out the list of challenges, the report pointed to poor infrastructure, elevated production costs, raw material shortages, and unfavourable trade policies as additional pressures manufacturers continue to navigate. Taken together, MAN said the findings highlight how much pressure remains on the real sector despite recent fiscal and foreign exchange reforms, and it called for more effective, on-the-ground implementation of policies meant to improve the operating environment for manufacturers rather than simply announcing them.
