Kano State Governor Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, in this interview with SADIQ ABDULATEEF, lays bare the intrigues and power play that trailed the controversial election of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF). He insists that the winner of the election, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, will not abandon the mandate without their say so.
Please give us insight into how this Governors Forum thing started, and why the choice of Governor Amaechi?
I had the chance to be a governor in 1999 when this Fourth Republic started. And I am also happy to say that I participated actively in electing our first chairman, the governor of Nassarawa State, Alhaji Abdulahhi Adamu who has always been my friend. I and a very few others decided to nominate him and he was eventually elected. It was just like any other game and everyone was happy. The day was like any other game to us because we were able to elect somebody we respected, loved and liked. He was NGF chairman until 2003 when I left.
As you know this time around 2011, I was elected governor again and I realized that just before I came in, they elected the NGF chairman, which was Governor Rotimi Amaechi. As far as I am concerned, Amaechi is a good man. He has respect for all of us and I remember when I was member of NDDC, anytime I went to Port Harcourt, all that we needed to do was for my special assistant to phone them to tell them. He never allowed me to sleep in any hotel. I was always in government house, its presidential wing and I was treated like what it should be. And we kept on having good relationship and Gods-willing I became governor and we are in the same forum.
What actually led to the current impasse in the NGF?
You see, early this year when there was a meeting, he (Amaechi) raised the issue of election. And somebody said he should continue. Many of us supported but others said no. The constitution was brought, all sought of argument were brought in, at the end of the day, it was decided that it should be postponed because the constitution of the forum has given specific days’ notice, I think three days that must be given to all members and at that time, three days were not given and we all accepted, even those who were supporting him. Another date was fixed and we all came in for the election, unfortunately, there were people who were desperately trying to kick against the election because they thought Amaechi will win. Now that election didn’t take place again especially when some people brought in an issue that we just had weeks to the handover day and people decided to say look, if we have an election, it means, you have to hand over, they said there was no problem, yet it was decided because of the desperation of some people to postpone the election again.
And along the line, some people suggested that PDP should have a leadership,and then many people thought there is linkage between that election and of course the appointment of the NGF chairman. Ofcourse we now have chairman of PDP governors forum and we met immediately after the appointment of the chairman PDP governors forum. Let me say that, at that meeting, we made it very clear that we are determined to ensure democracy in this country and if there is no democracy in governors’ forum, I begin to wonder where we can have democracy in this country. And many people don’t understand how angry many people are. Many people here in Abuja don’t understand how committed we are to ensure democracy in this country. We are not even talking of governors’ forum. So we decided to stick to our guns.
Stick to your guns? Does it mean you were put under pressure?
I have two grandchildren in primary school and no father or grandfather will choose a friend to your grandchildren. You only see them. Who is your father, they will tell you maybe he is your enemy. It is very difficult to tell your child that the father of this your friend is my enemy. A good father or grandfather is better if he keeps quiet. Because the more you tell your grandchildren that your grandfather or father is your enemy, the more they stick to their friends because they wouldn’t understand what you mean by that.
What exactly played out in the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) before the NGF election?
During the meeting of the PDP Governors’ Forum, we made the point, but you see, after the meeting we decided to call the Northern Governors Forum meeting. We sat down at the Benue governor’s lodge and at that meeting, the issue of Governor Shema came up. And I told Shema look, I am terribly disappointed with you that you are my neigbour, friend and you never came to tell me you were contesting the election and you are parading yourself like someone who was sent to us. I advised him and told him clearly thatI will never vote for him on that issue; I will never ask anybody to vote for him and I will make sure that he lost that election. I even told him to withdraw. Other governors present supported me. Isa Yuguda was there, Adamawa supported and others supported that he should go and withdraw. Unfortunately, some people took that opportunity to go and say that Shema had no support in the north. Later Shema was dropped and they brought Isa Yuguda. Isa came to me and I told him that look, I am still a villager, I behave in many ways like a villager. In my village in Kwakwanso in Kano, if a councillor goes to a family and says I am contesting to become a councillor in the morning and they accepted, when someone comes in the afternoon, they will tell him that you are late. I told him clearly, look, you are late. Let me also correct the impression that many thought North didn’t like Shema, No. That is not the issue. On that particular instance, we did not want Shema because we want to choose our own chairman. Now you are coming through the same route and I advised him, you must not try it, if you do that, you will loose. When he insisted ofcourse it was in my house, I didn’t want to go as hard as I did to Shema whom we met in a neutral ground. I told him let’s see how it goes.
A day to election, he phoned me and I said still Amaechi is our target. On the day of the election, we went to the chairman Northern Governors’ Forum. You see, it was all politics; it’s ok. Some people were determined to ensure that Amaechi didn’t win the election and on the other hand, we were determined to prove to them that nobody can shave our heads in our absence. A situation where our colleagues are going round in Abuja abusing us telling them that they can do it alone, I don’t think that is acceptable. That was why we proved to them that they are at the elementary level of politics in this country. By the time they went there, the Niger state governor’s lodge, of course we had serious deliberations. The question; was any of them ready to stepdown for the other? None was ready to step down. At the end of the day, we had as governors the privilege, the luxury of selecting who was to be the NGF governor.
Let me say that we are northerners and I think we should be consulted on what we need for the north. Some people have decided that we should take chairman governors forum. That is not our choice. We know what we want in the politics of this country and even if that is what we want, we are not expecting anybody to choose for us, we should choose for ourselves. I think that point should be very clear.
Our position is very clear with all governors, whether in the north or south that we are determined to elect the Rivers State Governor but everybody was playing game, everybody was playing politics
What exactly happened in the Niger State Governor’s Lodge?
What we did in the Niger State governors Lodge was (that) we decided to say, ‘you can’t get Shema as chairman of the minority group, the G-16, you cannot even get your second choice, the Bauchi governor that they elected’ and our group decided under my leadership to give Jang as their leader. I nominated Jang and I asked the Benue State governor to support me; he did. And many people supported Jang to be the leader because we realised that they were very desperate. We gave them who we feel should lead the minority group of G-16. Now many of them were happy because they refused to take us seriously that Amaechi should continue; they thought they could play games.
They went and had a meeting and Jang nomination was accepted. At the end of the day, they brought him to the general meeting of the governors forum and at the forum, we told them clearly that Amaechi should continue to be our chairman and all efforts to frustrate voting saying that there shouldn’t be voting. Why shouldn’t there be voting when there is no consensus, this is democracy. They were hell-bent in removing Amaechi and were also determined to ensure that our friend whoever he is among 36 governors is the chairman of our forum.
There was an election. 35 of us who were there voted and counted with the exception of the Yobe State governor who was absent. At the end of the day, the votes were separated - Amaechi 19, Jang 16. I was really shocked when the governor of Akwa Ibom brought a paper that was signed in April. Initially I was laughing but when I thought about it deeply, it was very disheartening for a governor who was supposed to be our leader, the leader of PDP Governor’s Forum.
What is important (I believe in democracy) is people to appreciate the power of ballot papers. I am the governor of Kano by the Grace of God, but I got only 46 per cent of the vote. The three major parties, ANPP, CPC and ACN and others shared 54 per cent. But what could they do, they went everywhere, they went to court but I am the governor. It is very disheartening that even at our own level, governors will sit down in a hall, get ballot papers, vote, count the votes and then somebody is saying he doesn’t agree is referring to old papers that were signed weeks before that election.
I was very angry with some rascals in Kano who went on rampage immediately after the presidential election and I was telling everybody that what they did in Kano and other states was unforgiveable but when I experienced this election, I felt terribly sad.
Especially the chairman of the PDP governors forum, when he brought that paper, the way he is talking, he is talking too much. When you see him, tell him to talk like the PDP governor’s forum chairman. Because I am beginning to be ashamed if our chairman is behaving like that.
Like I said earlier, we should decide on what we want in the north. We are fifteen governors in number. If there is anything we should be given, it is chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum.
What do you have to say about the gale of suspensions in PDP?
I want to say, especially to those living in Abuja, that those living in glass house must not be throwing stones, especially when it comes to these dirty words: suspension, expulsion, dismissal and impeachment. These are words people should be cautious about. We want peace, stability and development in this country.
Are you worried over the NGF factionalisation?
But we are democrats and people should be conscious. Now all these things that are happening to me, I think people shouldn’t worry too much. Because in developed democracies like Britain, America, Germany everywhere, you have two major parties. In Nigeria we have one party now and other small parties. Who knows? Maybe we are having transition in this country of two parties. And before we have two parties, some people must make mistakes, big big mistakes. You begin to wonder why people are thinking in that direction because if you have party ‘A’ with 25 number, you have another one with difference of 36, and people are fighting when the table is being turned, that is how you have group of nineteen and sixteen. Certainly, governor of Yobe should be part of the 19. He doesn’t need to say it. Even, there are so many people among the 16 that are not supposed to be there. We did not even ask them to come and vote on this side because we are very considerate of their situation. We just allowed them to be there. And we didn’t even need a majority of 10; we just wanted a majority of one or two or three because we believe in cutting edge politics. If you have very sharp razor blade and the one that is blunt by looking at them, the difference is very small. But when you start cutting - that is the work of the blade - that is when you see the difference. The difference now - 19 and 16, the three is the cutting edge. And that is very important.
Back to PDP...
Let me at this time appeal to all those concerned stakeholders in PDP; be very cautious and patient to do what good politicians should do. We are the stakeholders, we are the governors, we are the field commanders, we should be important especially in meetings. The problem we have in the party now is we don’t have anywhere to go and say our minds and that is why the founding fathers of this party decided to say in the constitution that at least, every three months, we should meet at least once. Now, for how long have we met since the election of our chairman? These are the issues; we don’t have to be communicating through you the press. We should communicate among ourselves. And that is the only way. By the time we start washing our linens outside, that becomes a disaster. We are still loyal members of the party but we have rights and privileges. I cannot appoint a minister, I cannot appoint chairman, and other people should do that. But when it comes to rights and privileges of governors, they should be allowed to go and do the right thing as they understand them. So I hope that our leaders in Abuja will think more positively because if you suspend a governor, if you dismiss or expel a governor, what is he handing over to the party; salaries or allowances that he receives or offices? This party belongs to all of us, it doesn’t belong to governor, it doesn’t belong to party chairmen, it does belong to President, it belongs to everybody. When I was going into the PDP in 1998 in Kano, we had invested so much in the party, we have benefitted so much from the party. I don’t think any governor is thinking of leaving this party. But if you are suspended, dismissed or expelled, well, of course there are many options. I can assure you all those governors who voted for Amaechi consider this suspension a suspension to all of us. Not to Amaechi, not to Sokoto governor. We are even surprised that it started from them. I think there are bigger fish than Amaechi and governor of Sokoto. Most of us are disappointed that thing started from there because, on this issue, Amaechi to us has only two task; campaign, talk to the opposition because it is governors forum, not PDP forum; talk to them, we have no business with governors from other parties, but you are the candidate, talk to them, probably even soothe them to vote for him. The second option is hanging on to the contest, can you hold it? He said yes, ok, hang on to that. Now I can tell you, Amaechi cannot withdraw without our approval. He cannot. Anybody who is saying Amaechi should withdraw is wasting his time because that is not the agreement between us and Amaechi. Only two tasks before Amaechi and he is doing them well. Ours is to ensure democracy prevails in this country and if there is no democracy among ourselves then you begin to wonder. We are working very hard to ensure democracy. I can assure you if there is any election today or tomorrow, Amaechi will get more votes than 19 because all of us who voted for him are even more determined now to vote for him. I begin to wonder what is there. If you give me that position now or chairman, Northern Governors’ Forum, or PDP Governors’ Forum, I won’t take it. And I told them on many occasions because, you see when I nominated Jang, I think governor of Kwara nominated me towards the tail end. I told them, ‘look don’t put caucus here especially after we have already got a candidate. I cannot do that’. But you have got somebody that can do it and he is doing it effectively. What is the purpose of that position? It is to represent our interest. If our money is hanging somewhere, he should go and tell them to bring the money.
What is your parting shot on Amaechi?
Amaechi is a good man and he has our support. You see, this kind of election is not the type you go and give money; we are all governors. We just have a conviction in what we are doing. The more people are making noise, the more we are getting more determined. It looks to me that many people who are benefitting from this system are determined to destroy it.
Have you brought this development to the notice to the chairman, BOT and Mr President?
That is the issue; that is why I have been making reference to some of our colleagues and many other people. If you are close to the party or somewhere in Abuja, you better tell them the truth. At this level, we are playing advance level politics. Those who thought they are there now, we are proving to them that we are far away from them. They went and convinced everybody that Mr. A or Mr. B will certainly win the election and that is why they are frustrated. That is why they are on rampage. You cannot choose my own friend for me. The party didn’t call me. Nobody did. (Culled from Leadership)
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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