Irked by alleged dictatorial tendencies of President Goodluck Jonathan, Hundreds of diaspora Nigerians, resident in London, today, picketed 10 Downing Street, where they presented a copy of their petition to the British Prime Minister.
The Petition, titled UNSUSTAINABLE LEVEL OF ORCHESTRATED POLITICAL TENSIONS IN NIGERIA and signed by Daniel Timi Kurobo,reads,
"Nigeria burns and a conflagration will have severe consequences internationally if not immediately stopped. As a matter of fact, democracy in Nigeria is slowly but surely inching closer to an early grave. Nigeria is close to the precipice –suggesting the possibility of another military coup which we do not want. But it may shock you to know that Nigerians in their teeming numbers are already canvassing for this as the only antidote to a budding civilian dictatorship. This is more of a grave concern as you could imagine.
Distinguished Prime minister, Sir, we are by this significant protest today right at your official premises and in the act of the presentation of our petition seeking your immediate intervention in Nigeria before it is too late and intractable to do so. Your timely intervention through a fact-finding mission to Nigeria is of utmost concern considering the grave implication the crisis in Nigeria could have on the international community, particularly Britain. Our fears arise from the dangerous use of federal might by the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration to undermine democratic structures in Rivers State. Plans are also at advanced stage to expand this political subterfuge to other states in the federation as Nigeria approaches the 2015 general elections. The next is Niger State and followed by Lagos and Jigawa States. The existing state of emergency in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa States is also part of the scheme.
To underscore this concern, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka's (All Newspapers in Nigeria, May 6, 2013) recent comment on the development was quite significant. Soyinka in reaction to the series of events in South-South Nigeria's Rivers State had warned that the situation had reached an unsustainable level as tension reigned in Port Harcourt. In the statement, entitled: “Cool it, President Goodluck Jonathan,” the Nobel Laureate had urged the President to break the culture of federal executive impunity in Rivers State:
“The increasing flash points in the nation have reached an unsustainable level, and responsible governance must accept that it is an urgent duty to diminish, not increase them. Even the notoriously short Nigerian memory remains traumatised by recollection of the rape of Anambra [State] that was enabled by the connivance of federal might, and the abandonment of all moral scruples in executive disposition. The people of Ogun State were humiliated by the antics of a power besotted governor, with their elected legislators locked out of the National Assembly for upwards of a year. That hideous travesty was again made possible by the abusive use of the police. Even a child in this nation knows that the police derive its enabling and operational authority from the dictates of the centre, so there can be no disguising whose will is being executed wherever democratic norms are flouted and the people’s rights ground to mush under dictatorial heels. Before the irretrievable point of escalation is reached, we have a duty to sound a collective alarm, even without the lessons of past violations of constitutional rights and apportionments of elected representatives of the people, and their consequences.
“There is an opportunity in Rivers State to break this spiraling culture of [Federal]executive impunity – manifested in both subtle and crude ways – that is fast becoming the norm in a post-military dispensation that fitfully aspires to be called a democracy.
Soyinka also warned that mounting impunity is sliding the country in the direction of danger, calling for a halt before matters get out of hand. He also identified three institutions responsible for what he termed “this gathering dark cloud” as federal might, the Executive, and the police. This was the second time in three months that the Nobel laureate will be sounding warning of a progression to a state of impunity in the county. He concluded by saying that for democracy in Nigeria to survive, then, “the Jonathan administration should look in the direction of the current escalation in federally inspired attack in Rivers State to calm the nerves of the police.”
In spite of Soyinka’s warning the Federal Government of Nigeria to date still maintains this seeming abuse of office and continues to the democratic structures in Rivers State. The Commissioner of Police of Rivers State, Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu is directly being instigated by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Inspector General of the Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar; and should be held accountable for any breakdown of law and order.
The above is premised on the following facts:-
1.On April 22, 2013 Rivers State House of Assembly suspended Obio/Akpor Local Government Council Chairman and other council members based on a petition bordering on allegations of financial impropriety and other fraud related allegations.
2.On April 23, 2013, a Caretaker Committee led by Mr. Chikodi Dike was constituted and sworn in.
3.On May 2, 2013, First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan stops over at Port Harcourt International Airport, enroute to Bayela State. At the airport, the First Lady encountered Mr. Dike and addressed him publicly as illegal Chairman of Obio/Akpor. Then she turned to the State Director of SSS and summoned him to a meeting in Yanagoa, Bayelsa State.
4.On May 3, 2013, the Commissioner of Police, Rivers state; MR MBU JOSEPH MBU ordered the invasion, sealing-off, and besieging of Obio/Akpor Local Government Council Secretariat, without any valid instrument of law or justification, preventing the carrying on of legitimate businesses of the council. The Commissioner of Police actually sealed Obio/Akpor Council Secretariat with Mobile Police Officers and Armored Personnel Carriers, (APCs) claiming bomb scam and said it was based on the orders of IGP.
5.On May 5, 2013, more than Three hundred (300) hoodlums and gun brandishing gangsters were allowed into the Rivers state House of Assembly (Legislature) premises chanting war songs. The Assembly complex which is directly adjacent to the Police Headquarters in Moscow Road was not provided with any form of protection. The Divisional Officer (D/O) of the Assembly Police Station had disclosed that he was ordered by the Police Commissioner, MBU JOSEPH MBU to allow the hoodlums and gangsters access into the complex. This is also in the face of an earlier ordered withdrawal of security operatives deployed to protect the Assembly Complex on “orders from above” by the said Commissioner of Police. The Assembly Complex is currently sealed-off and under siege. The scenario also played out at the Obio/Akpor Council secretariat, Rumuodumaya on same day. At the moment, 27 members of the House and their families are under constant intimidation, threats of arrest and assassination by persons believed to have the tacit support of the Commissioner of Police, Rivers state. This development has made it practically impossible to carry out constitutional responsibilities
6On May 4, 2013, Commissioner of Police and other Rivers State Security Chiefs in charge of Army, Navy, Airforce and the Director of the State Security Services (SSS) met with the First Lady in Yenagoa, Bayelsa. This remains a constitutional breach and a provocative act of tyranny which ordinarily ought to have caused an immediate investigation by the National Assembly (NASS).This constitutional breach should be a weighty concern to the international community given that the First Lady can unilaterally enflame war against another country while the President is asleep. This development has caused restiveness in the Nigerian military and the implication cannot be ascertained now.
The orchestrated political tension as inspired by the President, wife and his officials is an unfortunate development for Nigeria’s desperate search for a political order based on democracy. Almost simultaneously, an Abuja high court (that clearly has no jurisdiction to hear a matter of such nature) gave a politically toxic and legally dubious verdict, ceding control of the ruling PDP in Rivers State to an anti-Amaechi party executive. This was done to instigate violence in Rivers State, thus introducing a dangerous dimension to the crisis in Nigeria – the Jonathan-led administration intimidates and has successfully coaxed the judiciary to submission. Now, the administration now writes legal decisions for judges. In a choreographed series of consequent manoeuvres inspired by the President and his officials, the new PDP executive in the state has quickly issued a series of directives to both factional party faithful and even the elected government of the state. The undisguised aim is to antagonise the sitting governor of the state and create an atmosphere of confusion.
In tow, the Nigeria police command in the state has acted in an obvious partisan routine that leaves no other assumption than that it is out to protect the anti-Amaechi forces. It has taken over the premises of a duly constituted local government and overrun the premises of the State House of Assembly. As if that is not enough, the police have also withdrawn police security from a sitting local government chairman and other officials for daring to openly express support for the Governor – thus leaving them vulnerable to attacks.
This disturbing development has further strengthened the arguments of those who have canvassed for the establishment of State Police in each state of the federation. Now, with the development in Rivers state, evidence on the ground suggests that no fewer than 21 states have resolved to go ahead with the establishment of state Police irrespective of concerns on the modalities for recruitment.
These developments in Rivers state came in the immediate aftermath of a series of Abuja meetings between the president and a selection of governors in a bid to convince them to avoid re-electing Governor Amaechi who sought and convincingly won a second term as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum. The failure of the President’s candidate for this same election has upped the ante, resulting to the President breaking the group into two factions.
All these have been intended to provoke Governor’s camp into violence in Rivers State even though the governor has decided to pursue his case through legal process. The Governor has notably advised all his supporters and aides not to engage in any form of violence, no matter the provocation. When some thugs imported from neighbouring states and ex-militants almost overran the Government House in Port Harcourt on May 16, 2013, the governor told security men not to fire a shot. To avoid mayhem, the governor left the Government House. Amaechi’s position is that democracy can only thrive where the rule of law is allowed to take its normal course. The introduction of the ex-militants into the crisis was to prevent the Governor from traveling Governors Forum election.
When a president of a federation recruits ex-militants and terrorists to fight his political battles, he is not only setting a dangerous precedent, he is also showing how he has unknowingly rubbished the significance of the most exalted office in the land. Mr. Prime Minister, you may wish to imagine what the perception of the good people of Britain would be if you employ the masterminds of that dastardly and condemnable Woolwich killings as your political thugs in the next elections. In Nigeria, it is regrettable that is the only practical credential needed by the federal authorities to employ them as thugs in the next elections. This explains why it is feared that the unnecessary prolongation of the Boko Haram crisis is deliberate design for the 2015 elections.
Taken together, these events and actions indicate clearly that the democracy travails in Rivers State are coming directly from the presidency in Abuja. The footprints are all too familiar: presidential political displeasure with a governor followed by the unleashing of the instruments of the federal state to intimidate and harass the offending governor; EFCC, spurious allegations of wrongdoing, the use of the security apparatus to partisan ends, the recruitment of political jobbers and miscreants to create confusion and compromising the judiciary to obtain court judgments that will justify a forcible takeover of the administration of the state through the declaration of a state of emergency. This seems to be the path that the Jonathan forces are striding on the matter of Rivers State.
Beyond this repugnant show of Abuja might, however, the Rivers State situation has implications that go far beyond the immediate egos and personalities in the conflict. Unless it is checked now and effectively too, a number of tragic consequences await Nigeria and the international community. Party elders in the state have expressed their displeasure at the turn of events. Labour has sounded a note of warning. Students and youth of the state and the nation have indicated that they will defend Amaechi. The ordinary people of Rivers State are unhappy that their recent developmental gains may be lost if anything untoward happens to Amaechi. A critical majority of governors of both the PDP and the opposition parties have weighed in on Amaechi’s side. An otherwise localised development looks set to aggravate tensions in a nation already beset by numerous national security threats.
In a multi-pronged tactical battle against the Rivers governor, the Presidency began releasing a torrent of accusations against Amaechi:
of using the NGF to challenge Jonathan’s authority.
On realising that the above accusation may be too tenuous to justify, since he was only a spokesman of the NGF, then the next accusation became that Amaechi was having the ambition to contest the presidential election as a running mate to either Jigawa Governor Sule Lamido or Niger Governor Babangida Aliyu. None of the presidential handlers had mentioned when mere ambition has become a sin in a democracy.
Amaechi has been brazenly tagged a traitor to Jonathan’s second term undeclared ambition, and therefore a traitor to Niger Delta interests. This was reinforced so profoundly by Nigeria’s ex Niger Delta militant leader, Asari Dokubo. These attacks are ultimately aimed at achieving one objective - prevent him from having a hand in who become the governor of Rivers state and the president of the federation in 2015. Mr. Prime Minister, it may interest you to note that other militants in the league of Asari Dokubo have also threatened to go to war if the president loses the 2015 elections. To this, the northern youth have also dared them to commence the war now because they would not vote for the president. Thus, you could imagine that war already looms in Nigeria long before the 2015 elections.
These assaults are likely to mortally injure Nigeria’s quest for a viable democratic culture. If the crime of the governor is that he is opposed to the president on a number of national issues, then there is the need to review our understanding of democracy. The freedom to canvass opposing views is integral to any healthy democratic culture. Even the fact of belonging to the same party does not deprive individual partisan leaders of the right to disagree on policies and issues. In the best of democratic traditions, most large political parties contain various strands and tendencies. We see the emergence of radicals like Rotimi Amaechi in the PDP as a healthy development if the party were to reform itself and align with the currents in the larger polity. The rise of a progressive arm of the PDP would be the best guarantee that the party will not be swept out of power by the oncoming gale of progressivism that is the driving force of the new opposition merger.
Even if the governor were to challenge President Jonathan in an open convention for the next presidential ticket of the PDP, it would enhance the democratic credentials of a party that makes such a contest possible. For instance, the current vice-president of South Africa is on record as having contested against President Jacob Zuma in the last presidential elections. In spite of that, they have worked together and the ANC is the stronger for it. Similarly, Hillary Clinton waged a vicious contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket against Barack Obama but ended up being one of America’s best Secretaries of State in US history and easily Obama’s greatest political asset and ally.
Beside the above, there is the determined attempt by the federal administration in re-igniting the violent arm of the Odua People’s Congress (OPC) in order to replicate what Boko Haram has done in parts of North in South-West Nigeria. This is in the guise of employing the OPC militants to protect petroleum pipelines in the region and through the formation of the Unity Party of Nigeria. This is aimed at reducing the influence of the dominant political gladiators – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the region. Your Excellency, if these undemocratic practices under the Jonathan-led administration persists and spreads and in addition to the Boko Haram insurgencies in Northern Nigeria, there is every possibility that more than Thirty Million Nigerians would be seeking asylum in Western nations, particularly in Britain.
Your Excellency is hereby invited to note that your prompt intervention hinged mainly on your democratic values and concerns for international conflicts, would be in the interest of all friends of Nigeria and chiefly for a nation perennially beset with problems of grave strategic implications. What we ask for is so minimal -:
the enthronement of genuine democracy in Nigeria;
dictatorship in Nigeria must be condemned by the international community
holding the despot in Abuja accountable for any breakdown of law and order in Nigeria;
the president must stop the provocative act of monopolising political ambitions;
The Jonathan-led administration must stop fraternising with militants and terrorists;
President Goodluck Jonathan should be encouraged to be a moderate, outward-looking, pluralistic and democratic; and
The president must prove he can lead and govern.
Accept the assurances of our high esteem."
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered stolen Nigerian assets held abroad for information that leads to their recovery.
Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
According to him, the ability of EFCC operatives to trace assets, cooperation from the judiciary and access to credible intelligence have played important roles in the commission’s success in securing non-conviction-based forfeiture orders.
He also described the EFCC as having some of the best investigators in the world and stressed the importance of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
He said anyone with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets taken or hidden anywhere in the world could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the recovered assets as an incentive, with payment made after the recovery.
Olukoyede further revealed that the EFCC had forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the past three years.
He cited several cases involving the recovery and forfeiture of assets, including cases linked to a former Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Attorney-General of the Federation.
The EFCC chairman explained that the commission is legally empowered to seek the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime by applying to the High Court for an order. He said the process is similar to procedures used in countries such as Australia and Canada.
Olukoyede also recalled a case involving an aircraft allegedly acquired by an individual who was accused of receiving about $30 million in bribes in connection with a power project. He said the aircraft was forfeited about three months ago and had subsequently been added to the presidential air fleet.
He also referred to a property containing about 753 housing units that was forfeited from a former CBN governor, against whom the EFCC has filed criminal charges in three courts.
Speaking about the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Olukoyede said the EFCC opened an investigation following allegations of abuse of office. He claimed that investigators traced about 57 properties to Malami and that approximately 48 of them had been forfeited.
The EFCC chairman further mentioned the forfeiture of a private university allegedly linked to a director in the Federal Ministry of Health. According to him, the official voluntarily surrendered the property following the commission’s investigation.
Olukoyede said the measures demonstrate the importance of asset tracing, international cooperation, credible intelligence and whistleblower protection in the fight against financial crime and the recovery of stolen public assets.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has raised concerns over the growing volume of imported petrol entering Nigeria, warning that it could be forced to export more of its own production if the trend continues.
The refinery said imported Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) made up roughly 43 per cent of the petrol supplied to the Nigerian market in July. It argued that the development was creating serious difficulties for a domestic refinery with the capacity to produce enough fuel for the country.
Dangote Refinery explained that it has maintained sizeable petrol reserves since commencing operations to ensure that consumers across Nigeria have access to a reliable supply. Keeping those reserves, it noted, requires substantial expenditure on storage, transportation and working capital.
However, the refinery said the continued granting of import licences without adequate information about expected import volumes has made it increasingly difficult to determine how much petrol should be produced and stored for the local market.
The company said holding large quantities of petrol becomes financially burdensome when there is no certainty about how much imported fuel will compete for the same market. It therefore considers exporting surplus stocks a more commercially viable option than allowing them to remain in storage indefinitely.
According to the refinery, increased exports in recent months should not be interpreted as evidence that Nigeria lacks sufficient refining capacity. Instead, the exports are being driven by excess stock resulting from unpredictable import volumes.
Dangote Refinery maintained that it remains fully committed to supplying the Nigerian market and has the capacity to meet or surpass the country's petrol requirements. It said its decision to export surplus products was aimed at managing inventory efficiently and avoiding unnecessary storage and financing expenses.
The refinery also warned that market disruptions caused by excessive imports could make it harder for domestic refiners to accurately predict demand. Any resulting supply problems, it said, should not automatically be blamed on local refineries.
It urged regulators and other industry stakeholders to improve transparency around petrol imports and strengthen coordination within the downstream petroleum market.
The company argued that policies that give greater support to domestic refining would help Nigeria reduce its dependence on imported fuel, conserve foreign exchange, strengthen energy security and maximise the economic benefits of investments in local refining infrastructure.
Dangote Refinery said it remains prepared to supply the country but stressed that a more predictable and transparent market environment is necessary for efficient production and inventory management.
Business
In The Spotlight
A group of heartless carpetbaggers have captured the Nigerian state, and it appears that they, their biological and political descendants, will hold the levers of government and access to Nigeria’s commonwealth for a long time to come.
When you consider news reports of how previous and current state actors steal public funds, buy choice properties in the toniest districts of Nigeria’s major cities, acquire private jets, and even establish private universities, you wonder if some people have more than two heads, to adopt a Yoruba phrase.
Either because of an inability to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerian citizens, or by intention, the political elite have kept the people poor, causing them to depend on the largeness of heart of the same elite to meet their existential needs.
That explains why poor, downtrodden, and unconnected Nigerians eagerly collect crumbs of measly N5,000, rice, gari and whatever else the politicians offer to obtain their election votes or acquiescence after rigging the elections.
When watching an economically disadvantaged individual tell a politician who is seeking to become a legislator the good news that his wife just had a new baby, and he needed to prepare for the naming ceremony, it felt like the oppressed poor were enabling his oppressor to further oppress him.
It was like the classic case of Stockholm syndrome, of victims collaborating with their “captors” to cement the oppressive stranglehold that they already had over the state and the commonwealth of the nation, thus unwittingly arresting their own future development.
A running mate to a former governorship candidate in a Southwestern state hilariously regaled Nigerians with the story of how constituents would have raided all the alcoholic drinks in his refrigerator in the early hours of the morning, even before he woke from the hectic campaign tour of the previous day.
The political elite have practically cornered the Nigerian state for themselves, children, tribesmen and acolytes, and have devised a way to admit only those that they have found to be loyal, or pliable, into their rank of oppressors.
The oppression of the citizens of Nigeria is easily accomplished because of the high illiteracy level amongst the poor masses. The use of the weapon of illiteracy is more evident in Northern Nigeria, whose political leaders somehow turn a blind eye to the illiteracy and underdevelopment of their people.
In 2024, UNICEF revealed that out of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children, about 12.1 million, or 66 per cent, were resident in the Northwest and Northeast regions. Yet, instead of expanding educational facilities and opportunities, some Northern governors are arranging mass weddings for children who are hardly out of their teen years.
And this is not to deny the weaponisation of illiteracy even in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, which is regarded as the Athens of Nigeria, after its pre-Independence head start of free, universal and compulsory primary school education.
As if he had a premonition that Nigeria’s so-called democrats would eventually compromise education, to the detriment of the lowest and marginalised masses, that Karl Marx described as the “lumpen proletariat”, French political thinker Montesquieu argued a long time ago that “It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.”
Western Nigeria’s free education scheme was gradually abandoned from the days of the Second Republic when some Yoruba members of President Shehu Shagari’s political party knocked it off its bottom with the argument that “qualitative” education was better than “free” education.
It is more than a shame that a free, universal and compulsory primary school education scheme was abandoned under President Shagari, who not only was a trained teacher, but had a career as a teacher before his political career.
Awolowo had warned Nigeria’s political elite with the following quip: “The children of the poor that you failed to educate will not let your children sleep peacefully.” The insecurity that currently occurs in nearly every part of Nigeria only drives Awolowo’s point home.
Probably the realm of the Nigerian republic that has been most complicit with the carpetbagger political elite is the media, whose members either serve the elites as press secretaries who kill media brushfires, or editors who either run planted stories, or spike stories that the politicians do not want published.
The media is so compromised that it can hardly perform those responsibilities assigned to it by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, which are to “be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in (Chapter II of the Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
Some apologists have argued on behalf of the media that the political elite have so run the economy aground that the media, which can only thrive as commercial enterprises within Nigeria’s quasi-capitalist economy, cannot stay afloat, especially with the devastating inroads that the digital media are making into their audience, advertising revenue and profit.
The absence of regional economies, the argument goes, prevents the emergence of regional newspapers that can thrive on advertising revenues from regional companies, the way it obtains in the economies of North America and Western Europe. Many Nigerian newspapers, that are essentially regional, often pretend to be national to receive advertising revenue from companies whose market is national.
Two other collaborators of the political elite are the election management agencies and the judiciary at both the national and sub-national levels of government. The conspiracy between these agencies and the political elite is almost like that of Siamese twins conjoined by the belly button.
After the election management agencies may have deliberately bungled (especially) governorship and legislative house elections, and declared false reports, the losers, who felt that they won the election, would then approach the temple of justice, with significant financial inducement to ask for justice(?).
From that point on, the justice that both contestants hope to corruptly obtain could swing according to the heft of the naira in the Ghana-must-go bag that they will be hauling into the chambers of the denizens of the corrupted judiciary.
Thus, the “award” of electoral justice is “a matter of cash”, to quote Basi, the protagonist of “Basi & Co”, the television sitcom produced by environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who himself was denied justice from the judiciary that served the regime of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most notorious military dictator.
In Nigeria, the lines of separation of powers that demarcate the duties of the three arms of government –the legislative, executive and judiciary– and the checks and balances that empower each arm to check the others have become almost irredeemably blurred.
As legislators use constituency projects as a ploy to carry out the functions of the executive, the president issues executive orders that are essentially legislative in nature. Though the judiciary does not perform the duties of the other arms, it fails to check them as it indulgently winks at their excesses.
If those who are regarded as Nigeria’s political elite really know what is in their enlightened self-interest and would like to protect the future of their descendants from what Thomas Hobbes described as a short, brutish and nasty existence, they will use their current privilege to correct the evil they have done to Nigerians.
They must urgently redeem the future before it delivers violence against their children.
By Lekan Sote
In The Spotlight
Lagos alone is worth more than Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Mauritius combined.
Let that sink in.
With an economy of N41.17tn — about $102bn in 2021 — Lagos State dwarfed the entire gross domestic products of four countries. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa sit on oil wealth that funds nations. Ogun, Anambra and Imo churn out goods, services and commerce that would make small economies jealous.
By the numbers, Nigeria’s states are giants.
But walk the streets of Lagos, and you will still find mothers cooking with firewood. Drive through Port Harcourt, and you will see communities drinking water polluted by the same oil that makes the state’s GDP glow. Visit Umuahia, Abeokuta, or Minna and ask the average trader what “trillion-naira economy” means to her dinner table.
The answer is: nothing.
That viral video telling you “10 Nigerian states are richer than countries” is both true and a lie. True, because the 2021 BudgIT figures don’t lie — Lagos at N41.17trn, Rivers at N7.96trn, and so on. A lie, because those numbers are GDP, not prosperity. They measure how much economic activity happens _in_ a place, not how much of it reaches the people who live there.
A country with $7,778 GDP per capita, like Botswana, will still feed its citizens better than a state with $102bn in total output but $2,058 per capita, like Nigeria. A state can host a port, an oil rig, and a tech hub, yet fail to build a hospital that works.
So, the real question isn’t “Which state is bigger than which country?”
The real question, and the one our governors should lose sleep over, is this: When your economy is bigger than a nation, why are your people still living like they have nothing?
In this edition of The Bottomline, we follow the money from GDP to the gutter — and ask why Nigeria’s trillion-naira states have not become trillion-naira lives.
The viral numbers are not new. They were lifted straight from BudgIT’s 2022 State of States report and reflected 2021 estimates: Lagos at N41.17tn, followed by Rivers at N7.96tn, Akwa Ibom at N7.77tn, Imo at N7.68tn, Delta at N6.19tn, Anambra at N5.14tn, Ondo at N5.10tn, Ogun at N5.03tn, Bayelsa at N4.63tn and Niger at N4.58tn.
The trick is in the timing. To pitch those 2021 figures against 2025 country GDPs is statistical fraud. Nigeria has since rebased. The NBS moved the base year from 2010 to 2019, and the whole map shifted. Lagos itself has moved on: its 2025 _Lagos Economic Development Update_ puts the state at N43.06tn in 2023, with forecasts of N54.77tn for 2024 and N66.47tn for 2025. Those are projections, not fresh NBS post-rebasing observations, but they tell you the direction: up.
There is no debate that Lagos is Nigeria’s economic engine. From a colonial port to federal capital until 1991, it never lost momentum. Today, trade, manufacturing, ports, telecoms, tech, entertainment, real estate and finance all cluster in just 3,345 square kilometres. Compare that footprint to Botswana’s 581,730 sq km, Namibia’s 825,615 sq km, Rwanda’s 26,338 sq km, and Mauritius’ 2,040 sq km. Yet in 2021, Lagos’ $102 billion economy was several times larger than Botswana’s $19.9bn, Namibia’s $15.1bn, Rwanda’s $16.4bn, and Mauritius’ $16.2bn, according to 2025 World Bank figures.
That comparison is legitimate. The conclusion people draw from it is not.
GDP tells you how much value was produced in a territory. It does not tell you who owns it, who earns it, or whether the roads work, the lights stay on, or the hospital has drugs.
A state can run a trillion-naira economy and still have mothers boiling water on firewood. A country can have a smaller GDP and deliver a better life. Look at the per capita numbers: Botswana at $7,778, Namibia at $5,309, Mauritius at $11,819. Nigeria sits at about $2,058. Even Rwanda, at just $773 per capita, has pushed its $3-a-day poverty rate down to 38.6 per cent — proof that size is not destiny.
The oil states expose the fraud most brutally. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa rank high because petroleum inflates their GDP. But oil wealth does not flow into state coffers in equal measure, and it certainly does not flow into household wallets. BudgIT’s own fiscal sustainability index proves this. In 2022, Rivers topped overall fiscal performance despite Lagos having the biggest economy. A big economy without revenue discipline, jobs, and services is just a billboard.
Nigeria does not have a GDP problem. We have a translation problem.
We have pockets of enormous economic power. Lagos. Rivers. Akwa Ibom. Ogun. Anambra. Delta. The output is real. What is missing is the bridge between that output and ordinary life.
Until economic activity creates real jobs, until IGR rises and addiction to federal allocation falls, until infrastructure supports production instead of strangling it, those trillion-naira figures will remain a cruel joke.
So let the video go viral. Let Lagos be “bigger than Botswana”.
But governors, commissioners, and citizens should ask only one question:
If my state can outproduce a country, why can’t it out-deliver a decent life for the people who call it home?
Until we answer that, we are not rich. We are just big.
By Raphael Mbamalu