Nearly 1.7 million jobs trace back to a single year of lending by the Bank of Industry (BoI), according to the bank’s first ever Annual Development Impact Report, which credits N645 billion in strategic financing deployed in 2025 with creating 1.68 million jobs while reaching 12,501 businesses, 1,615 startups and 950,362 grant beneficiaries.
The numbers matter less to BoI than what they represent: a deliberate pivot away from measuring success by loan volume toward measuring it by outcomes such as jobs created, industrial capacity added, gender inclusion and environmental sustainability. Managing Director Dr Olasupo Olusi said 2025 marked a defining year for that shift, one guided by implementation of the bank’s 2025 to 2027 Corporate Strategy, which he said laid the groundwork for stronger industrial development through wider access to finance, sturdier value chains and infrastructure investment. He framed the new report as an institutional expression of that commitment, a way of applying the same rigour to measuring development impact that the bank already applies to financial performance, and pointed to concrete internal changes behind it: staff attrition held below three percent, more than 2,200 training hours invested in environmental, social and governance standards, and a new Anticipated Development Results Report tool that assigns every financed project an Impact Score before approval.
The manufacturing sector, which accounts for roughly thirty percent of national output, absorbed a significant share of the financing, with the bank arguing that reducing investment risk in the sector helped unlock private capital and turn policy ambition into real industrial growth. Of the 7,078 businesses that benefited from disbursements nationwide, covering all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, 59 percent of the portfolio went to large enterprises and 41 percent to micro, small and medium enterprises.
Individual sectors showed distinct results. A N4.6 billion investment modernised six manufacturing plants, with nearly two thirds of supported firms increasing production capacity by more than twenty percent. Transport and logistics received N10 billion and generated 516 new jobs, 84 percent of them for young workers. Power and utilities financing electrified more than 100 rural communities through mini grids, connecting 11,777 new customers. In agriculture and food processing, 47,508 smallholder farmers were linked to formal value chains, with supported firms recording average revenue growth of 17.4 percent. Pharmaceutical financing supported nine new product lines, and climate finance interventions helped more than 55 companies install renewable energy systems.
BoI also served as the implementation agency for the federal government’s N200 billion MSME Industrialisation Fund, disbursing more than 95 percent of it, and expanded its Rural Area Programme on Investment for Development, disbursing about N11 billion between 2024 and 2025 to support 822 enterprises, with the North East emerging as the leading beneficiary region. Other landmark interventions included financing for a N35 billion national broadband rollout and N30 billion in mini grid investments across Lagos, Imo and Rivers States.
The bank tied its lending explicitly to Nigeria’s Medium Term National Development Plan, the Renewed Hope Agenda, the African Continental Free Trade Area framework and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those covering decent work and industry and infrastructure, arguing the alignment supports import substitution, export expansion and Nigeria’s positioning as a regional manufacturing hub. Environmental sustainability featured prominently too: a growing number of supported manufacturers adopted cleaner production technologies and energy efficient processes, while other interventions promoted flood control systems and renewable energy adoption.
Government officials who spoke at the report’s launch in Abuja echoed the bank’s framing. Minister of State for Industry Senator John Enoh called BoI one of the federal government’s most effective institutions and a benchmark for public sector excellence, saying virtually every manufacturing company he has visited since taking office has acknowledged the bank’s contribution to its growth. He described BoI as a strategic partner in implementing the Nigerian Industrial Policy and argued that industrial transformation will ultimately be judged by outcomes rather than declarations. Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Senator Abubakar Bagudu, represented by Minister of State Dr Doris Uzoka Anite, praised the bank for institutionalising annual impact reporting, calling it evidence that development finance should be judged by lives transformed rather than funds disbursed, and argued that Nigeria’s ambition of building a one trillion dollar economy will require development finance institutions to move beyond lending toward mobilising investment and strengthening investor confidence.
