Nigeria's long-run growthperformance has been extremely poor. Between 1960 and 2000,real income per capita grew at only 0.43 percent per year.The situation improved between 2001 and 2006 when real percapita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an averageannual rate of 4.2 percent. This paper demonstrates that thesuperior growth performance during 2001-06 is largelyattributable to the impact of better leadership and economicpolicy making. The improved performance of the economy after2003 arose from implementing a comprehensive economic reformprogram focusing on four main areas: macroeconomic reform;structural reform; governance and institutional reform; andpublic sector reform. The reforms, backstopped by improvedoil revenue management, monetary policy implementation, anddebt management, improved overall macroeconomic policymaking. This resulted in real GDP growth averaging 7.1percent per year between 2003 and 2006, an inflation rate of10 percent in 2006, foreign exchange reserves of US$45billion in 2006, and total external debt of only US$5billion in 2006. Clearly, between 1960 and 2000,Nigeria's policy choices were poor, and the reformsthat sought to correct them were plagued by inconsistencies,policy reversals, and lack of coherence. In contrast, due togood leadership, the reforms adopted in 2003 were consistentand have been implemented in a coherent manner.
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