As about 3500 delegates gathered to vote for 75 candidates who are vying for 17 positions at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) special convention on Saturday, various dramas played out in an unexpected proof of deep-seated divisions in the party’s hierarchy.
The convention held under tight security at the Eagle Square in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. The party had been embroiled in different crises in the state chapters. Governors and aggrieved elders of the party had also raised grievances that threatened to tear the party apart before the convention. All these played out during the special convention.
Anambra Delegates' Free-for-All
The delegates from Anambra State threw caution to the wind as they engaged in a free-for-all at the convention. Factional governorship candidate of the party, Andy Uba and his brother, Chris Uba, were manhandled by the faction loyal to the Tony Nwoye in a fisticuff that lasted over 30 minutes in the presence of delegates from other states.
Andy Uba, who is the chairman, Senate Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), his brother, and their loyalists had arrived early for the convention despite their suspension by the party and the reversal of the suspension by the court.
While seated at the delegates stand with Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, Tony Nwoye, a factional governorship candidate arrived at11.15am with his supporters and attempted to force the Ubas from the stand. This resulted in the fracas, which soon became intense and forced the minister to run away from the stand with her aides.
The fight lasted until security agents moved in to quell the violence while verbal exchanges continued. Those opposed to the Ubas said they had been suspended by the party and had no right to attend the convention. They were later allowed to seat with the delegates close to Tony Nwoye, the candidate accepted by the PDP headquarters for the November governorship election in Anambra.
Atiku, Governors Stage Walkout
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, nine governors under the PDP, some senators, members of the House of Representatives as well as local government chairmen staged a walkout on the party at the Eagle Square-venue of the convention. This was in spite of a statement by Tony Anenih at the convention ground that though the party had some crises, it also has the structure to resolve them.
The aggrieved Governors who walked out include embattled Governor of Rivers State, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi; his counterparts from Jigawa, Sule Lamido; Niger State’s Babangida Aliyu; Sokoto's Alliu Wamako; Adamawa State's Murtala Nyako; Kano State's Rabiu Kwankwaso and Kwara State's Abdulfatah Ahmed.
Other delegates who stormed out of President Goodluck Jonathan and other delegates include former Governors of Nasarawa and Osun, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Dr Sam Sam Jaja, Shaba Lafiagi, the Deputy Governors of Niger and Sokoto and several National Assembly members.
The aggrieved members headed to the Yar'Adua Centre in Abuja where they addressed a press conference to complain about the alleged atrocious activities of the president and the party's National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.
Former Chairman of the PDP, Abubakar Baraje who addressed the press on reasons for the walkout, accused Tukur of acting as a thin-god, snubbing members and being too dictatorial. The members announced that they had broken away to become a faction of the party and rejected Tukur as their Chairman.
The trouble started when the preferred candidate for the position of the party’s Deputy National Chairman (South), Dr. Sam Sam Jaja, a loyalist of Governor Amaechi, was suddenly dropped from the race by the party’s screening committee which announced Uche Secondus, who is the candidate of President Jonathan.
The aggrieved members also realised that party had planned to adopt an already prepared list of candidates listed by Board of Trustees Chairman, Tony Anenih.
Baraje called Tukur a factional Chairman of PDP adding: “From now on, this gathering here remains the authentic PDP and the leaders are these people here. They have mandated me to speak as the true leader of the party and I want you and all Nigerians to recognise this body as the true PDP while that led by Tukur has been overtaken by events because he has flagrantly insisted on leading the party contrary to the laws of the land and the constitution of the party.
“We address you today as leaders of PDP, who are worried by the increasing repression, restrictions of freedom of association, arbitrary suspension of members and other such violations of democratic principles by a faction of our party led by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur,” Baraje said at the briefing.
“While we have done everything humanly possible to bring to the attention of critical stakeholders within the party the dangers inherent in the course being charted by that leadership, it has become very clear that the desperate permutations towards 2015 general elections have blinded certain people from the consequences of their actions.
“Not only has the constitution of the party been serially abused by Alhaji Tukur and his fellow travellers, all the organs of the party have been rendered virtually ineffectual by a few people who act as though above the law. Unfortunately, it is obvious that that they get encouragement from the Presidency whose old calculations are geared towards shutting out any real or imagined opposition ahead of the party’s presidential primaries for the 2015 elections.
“As leaders of our great party, we consider it a sacred responsibility to save the PDP from the antics of a few desperadoes who have no democratic temperament and are therefore bent on hijacking the party for selfish ends. While the list of their violations of the tenets of our great party is long, we will highlight just a few.”
Baraje recalled that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, at its “belated” meeting of 20th June 2013, approved 20th July 2013 for the conduct of a special national convention. However, that date was changed to 31st August without reverting to NEC (the only authority vested with such powers) by a few people, apparently acting on the authority of the Presidency.
“Notwithstanding the fact that INEC had noted that the PDP congresses in nine states were not properly conducted, the illegal delegates from such states are being paraded at the so-called convention being held today in a cynical attempt to circumvent the law and further bring the name of the party to disrepute.
“In gross violation of the PDP constitution, which stipulates that the NEC meeting must hold at least once in a quarter, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and a few people have been running the party like a personal fiefdom without recourse to that important decision-making organ of the party.
“The NEC of the party accepted the resignation of the former members of the NWC whose offices were affected by INEC observations based principally on the agreement that the affected officers would be returned to their respective offices at the convention. However, against the decision of the NEC and in a not-so-clever bid to exclude some perceived opponents of the few powerful members, who are trying to hijack the party, these positions have been made open to some yes-men within the party.
“Notwithstanding INEC instance that Senator Any Uba is the duly elected candidate of the party in Anambra State and against the background that he is so recognized by majority of our party members, the Bamanga Tukur-led Executives announced a purported suspension of Senator Uba and some other members close to him in defiance of subsisting court orders.
“Despite that the PDP Constitution is very clear that the state chapter of the party cannot discipline a national officer, Deputy National Chairman, Mr. Sam Jaja, has reportedly been dismissed by some renegades, who have hijacked the Rivers State chapter of our party with the connivance of the Bamanga Tukur leadership.”
Other matters that Baraje’s camp complained of were: “The persistent change in the list of the party’s delegates in many states, as part of a deliberate attempt to rig the party’s nomination of candidates especially at the presidential and gubernatorial levels, with a view to foisting on the PDP some unpopular candidates who are bound to lose at the polls.
“The suspension, without due process of the Governors of Rivers and Sokoto states: Even when the illegal suspension on Sokoto State Governor has been lifted, the Rivers Governor remains purportedly suspended for no just cause. The illegal dissolution of the Adamawa State chapter of the party is a clear abuse of power by Alhaji Bamanga Tukur thus causing confusion in his home state.
“Given the foregoing, it is very clear that the Bamanga Tukur leadership cannot guarantee for our millions of party members democracy anchored on free choice and the rule of law. We have therefore taken it upon ourselves to rescue the party from their inept and dictatorial leadership.
“It is indeed noteworthy that from 1999 to date, Nigerians have constantly voted the presidential candidates presented by our great party but not only does such trust come wig enormous responsibility, we recognize that we cannot continue to take the people for granted.
“From now, the new leadership of the party under us will strive to build a fairer as well as a more transparent and accountable PDP that will put the interest of members and indeed all the people of Nigeria above that of one single individual.
“For all the members of our great party who may have become disillusioned by the anti-democratic tendencies of the Bamanga Tukur’s leadership, there is a new lease of life in the horizon. It’s a new day for the Peoples Democratic Party.
“As we take over the leadership of the PDP, our immediate priority is to revive the culture of robust debate of all contending issues while providing a level-playing field for all our members. These were the ideals that differentiated our party from others and endeared us to Nigerians.
“We are not, and have never been a political party where one man would be taking decisions for all members and where once you do not kowtow before the Presidency, you are deemed a rebel that must be crushed. That is not the PDP bequeathed to us by our founding fathers. That, I dare say, is no longer what PDP under our leadership will represent from today.”
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar said: “Today is a very historic day in the life of our party. It is also a day of mixed feelings. It could also be a day of happiness. It could also be a sad day, sad because the party we conceived in 1998 to be a rallying point for all Nigerians to be a source of unity, to be a party that will fulfil the aspirations of Nigerians, has today be dragged down by people who don’t even understand what party politics is all about.
“So, or sometimes, I have always been trying to draw attention of leaders of our party, and the leaders of government that this democratic dispensation is supposed to make things better for the people of this country. Let us not deceive ourselves, the country is full of frustration, the country is full of anger, is full of disappointment. Therefore we have a responsibility to see how we can reform our great party so that those lofty ideals, lofty goals can be achieved.
“They cannot be achieved by the present leadership of the party. It cannot be achieved even by the Presidency. I have said it before and I am saying it again, that we are going in a wrong direction, now we have seen the result. We are losing the party, we are losing the government, and for this very courageous people seated here, this idea was mooted to see whether we still have men with courage and determination to get up and stand up.
“I will therefore want to appeal to the rest of our party members who are still sitting on the fence to join this new PDP. I want to assure you, we will restore the values of the founding fathers of this party. Let me thank all you for the courage and support to stand up because some people will be hiding somewhere. By the grace of God with your support, with your loyalty, the change will be achieved.”
Adamawa Delegates Barred
Delegates from Adamawa State were barred from entering the venue of the congress with an excuse that they were not invited. The delegates who addressed the press said they stayed for several hours at the entrance but they were barred on the instruction of National Chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur. They also threatened to head to the court to seek redress, accusing Tukur of going against the party's constitution and taking laws into his hands.
The delegates from Adamawa said Tukur wanted only delegates from his faction to be given accreditation. This was against the rule that only delegates who participated in the last convention should be recognised, and his faction was not in place then.
They claimed that instead, the Nyako faction should have been recognised having participated fully in the last convention. While they were refused entry into the venue, the pavilion that was supposed to house them for the convention was filled by delegates of the party loyal to a faction led by Tukur. The aggrieved delegates said they would go to court on Monday to seek an order to upturn the convention for the use of wrong delegates list from Adamawa. Before finally walking out, Governor Murtala Nyako held a meeting with party members, senators and members of the House of Representatives loyal to him.
Confirming this situation, Governor Godswill Akpabio appealed to the angry delegates to not to wash the party's dirty linen in public, as the issues would be resolved within 24 hours.
More Grievances
Some of the aspirants raised dust concerning the one-sidedness of the president and the party hierarchy, lamenting that they were being forced to step down for other aspirants. One of such was the aspirant vying for the position of National Women Leader, Nikky Nkiru Nwabueze, who told journalists that despite being screened on Friday, President Jonathan told some of them that Kema Chikwe was going to be returned for the position. “Write it like that,” she told journalists.
Jonathan's Address
Despite these many challenges that almost marred the convention, President Jonathan claimed all was well and described the party as the only one in the country that is truly democratic.
He said the party remained the only one with well-thought framework in the country since under the party, telecommunication, education, aviation, banking and infrastructure have been transformed. As at the time of this report, results were still being collated.
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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