Today’s defection of some governors and leading lights of the breakaway faction of the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress (APC) does not have the full backing of all members of the G7 group, Huhuonline.com can confirm.
Already, Governor of Niger State, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu has denied media reports purporting that he dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for APC, instead affirming his membership of the ruling party.
In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Aliyu’s Chief Press Secretary, Malam Danladi Ndayebo revealed the shock of his principal by the announcement of the merger of New PDP and APC, even before a final decision had been taken on the matter.
He said the governor was not present at the meeting where the merger deal was sealed, and insisted that talks are still ongoing with President Goodluck Jonathan, which means he would await the outcome of the negotiation before taking a final decision.
He said that the decision of some leaders of the new PDP to merge with APC lacks internal democracy, as the action is tantamount to the very offence the new PDP has been accusing the Tukur-led PDP of.
Also, his counterpart from Jigawa state, Sule Lamido says he is still a member of the PDP.Huhuonline.com learnt that the governors of Rivers and Adamawa are only in a hurry to depart the PDP because the party structure in the state has been taken from them.
Now, they want take advantage of the openings in APC and become the leaders of the party in their respective state. Nyako wants his son to succeed him after his tenure while Amaechi is alleged to be seeking to be able to influence 2015 election in Rivers State, without supporting President Jonathan’s second term ambition.However, his political God father,Dr.Peter Odili is gradually taking back the political structure he ceded to Gov. Rotimi Amaechi.
He also said part of the decision to join the APC was because the issues raised by G7 governors were not resolved by President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Speaking with journalists at the Port Harcourt International Airport upon his arrival from Abuja, Tuesday, Governor Rotimi Amaechi said,, “Yes, we have joined APC after the meeting we had with (Muhammadu) Buhari, (Bola) Tinubu and the interim chairman of APC (Chief Bisi Akande).
“The governors met on Monday and decided that we must meet with the APC leadership and when we met with the APC leadership, it was important we took a position and the position we took is for the good of our democracy and ensure that Nigeria moves forward. We can’t continue the way we are, where we are. The picture painted by the PDP was as if we were begging to come back to PDP and issues were not being looked into; issues were not being resolved and it’s important that we resolve it one way or the other.
“I think that what has happened is that what was then new PDP decided that it’s important that we move into APC and position ourselves for the next election.
“Rivers State must know that for me to have taken that decision, I had looked at the general interests of Rivers people. I was not elected to lead Nigeria, I was elected to lead Rivers State and I had looked at the interests of Rivers people and have seen that these interests were not protected in PDP. I have seen the fact that we are losing our oil wells in Etche, in the Kalabari areas and that the more they continue to pilfer these oil wells, the more we will continue to lose our wealth,” Amaechi said.
“The President and I have no personal quarrel. It’s important we put that in perspective. All the issues were issues that affect Rivers people; were issues that affect Nigerians and I am a Nigerian. I have to address those issues. He is my President and I respect him. I respect his office, respect him as a person, respect the fact that he's older but then as elected governor of Rivers State, I have the responsibility to lead Rivers State.
“If you look at what is going on, the federal government is not able to fund the states anymore. They say oil theft but oil theft is not enough reason for which we cannot fund ourselves.
“As per development in Rivers State, we are about to commission about 300 primary schools, we are about to commission another 70 health centres to add to the 60 we commissioned before. We are about to commission the Kelsey Harrison Hospital at Emenike Street. There is a new one inside Rivers State University of Science and Technology campus. There is a partnership between us and NDDC for which we have paid NDDC about N960 million for the Mother-and-Child hospital and NDDC is expected to bring about N900 million to make it N1.8 billion for the hospital. The stadium is about to be completed. So development is actually going on. We are working.”
No one is sure of where governor Wamaako of Sokoto stands. His arch nemesis and former boss, Governor Baffarawa is the leader of APC in Sokoto State. Huhuonline.com learnt that the leadership of APC was forced to apologise to Baffarawa for visiting the governor last month. Governor Wammako served as Deputy Governor to Alhaji Bafarawa, before resigning to run for the governorship of the state.
Our finding shows that Bafarawa is unwilling to collapse his political structure for a decamping Governor Wammako. Also, Alhaji Shekaru, the former governor of Kano state who is the leader of APC in the state is not ready to collapse his political structure for kwankwanso.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the official exit of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and other G7 governors to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as no shocker but rather, a vindication of the party’s earlier revelation.
In a statement signed by Special Adviser on Media to the Rivers State PDP Chairman, Jerry Needam, the party expressed satisfaction with the “welcome development”, saying it is a big relief for its leadership and other genuine members of the party, who have continued to tolerate the rebellious and insubordinate behaviour and actions of Amaechi and his allies over the period in the state and at the national level.
“With the formal defection of Amaechi and his associates, the party is now better placed and focused to deliver to the people of the state the much-desired development and programmes that have been illusive following the internal ache that acted like a virus to the party by Governor Amaechi and his co-travellers”, the statement read.
“The defection of Governor Amaechi is inconsequential to the success of PDP in Rivers State, and the nation. Rather than create adverse effect on the party, it will further strengthen the party at all levels.
“To this end, the PDP in the state, in the coming days, it will organise a thanksgiving service in celebration of the exit of the undesirable elements and to thank God for answering its prayers”.
The party implored its numerous members to join it in thanking God for “being delivered from the evil that has held the party in bondage in the state and at national level”, and to remain steadfast and even more committed, noting that time has come for those who have been held captive to be liberated.
It congratulated all those who have, over the period, joined hands with its leadership in fighting against “dictatorship, impunity and abuse of rights of the citizenry in Rivers State.” It also wished “Governor Amaechi and his ill-fated train best of luck in their future endeavour”.
On its own, the nPDP has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to start preparing his 2015 handover notes, claiming that APC is now the majority party in the country.
Late this morning, at about 11:46am, National Chairman of the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, formally announced the merger of the party with the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The merger was contained in a communiqué read to journalists by Baraje at the end of a meeting between the leadership of New PDP and that of the APC held at the Kano Governor’s Lodge in Abuja.
“A meeting of the leadership of All Progressives Congress (APC) and the new PDP met this morning at the residence of the Kano State Governor, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, in Abuja and after exhaustive deliberations the two parties agreed to merge in order to rescue our fledgling democracy and the nation”, the communiqué, signed by Bisi Akande, the APC national chairman and Baraje, read.
With this development, the G7 Governors of New PDP — namely, Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) — are now members of the APC. The merger thus shoots up the number of APC state governors to 18 while PDP’s shrinks to 16, with All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Labour Party having one governor each. A similar permutation exists in the National Assembly where APC now has the majority with PDP and its allies in minority.
“The simple meaning of this is that APC is now the majority party in the country while PDP has become a minority party. In the circumstances, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan must now start writing his handover notes because his ambition to maouvre the party structures so as to get a third term in office in 2015 has suddenly collapsed”, National Publicity Secretary of NPDP, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze wrote in a statement.
“What a sudden change of fortune! What a sad day for the PDP, a party which we laboured to build, which was viciously taken away from us but which, out of our great love for it, we did everything humanly possible to save but were frustrated by the unpatriotic elements that have usurped the leadership of the party.
“Nigerians could recall that several meetings had been held between the APC leaders and the leaders of the New PDP. The APC had visited each of our seven New PDP governors in their states to convince them to join its fold but all these notwithstanding while the PDP Leadership on their own side were plotting on daily basis on how to frustrate us out of the party we suffered to nurture”.
nPDP maintained that it did all within its powers to reconcile with PDP to no avail, as sadly, Jonathan allowed the hawks within the Presidency and PDP Leadership to convince him to abort last Sunday’s meeting that would have brought a last peace to the party, which the PDP leadership under Alhaji Bamanga Tukur frustrated.
“So we have no other option than to formally announce the death and burial of PDP. Day and night we cried out, begging whoever loved PDP to join us to rescue the party from imminent doom but we were conveniently ignored and abused. Just last night, we issued the last in a series of passionate appeals to PDP Elders to take urgent steps to save the troubled party in the face of their unbelievable silence in the face of the chain of developments instigated by factional National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, which has put the party at the edge of the precipice.
“Now, we have reached the stage that we can only say: ‘PDP, your sinking ship has been abandoned to you! You brought this misfortune upon yourself, now you must bear it alone!’
“As for us, we are happy to belong to the APC, where our value is appreciated, where we are made to feel truly wanted, and where we can now join forces with like minds in our struggle to liberate Nigeria from PDP’s misrule, which is soon to end”.
Among those at Tuesday’s merger meeting were APC leader and former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu; APC National Chairman, Bisi Akande; Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso: former Kwara Governor and serving senator, Bukola Saraki; former Nasarawa Governor and serving senator, Abdullahi Adamu; former Bayelsa Governor, Timipre Sylva; and Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako.
Others are former Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari; Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi; court-reinstated National Secretary of the PDP, Olagunsoye Oyinlola; former Abia State Governor, Ogbonnaya Onu; former PDP Vice Chairman, Sam Jaja; Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed; and Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu.
However, in some sort of counter-reaction, the national leadership of PDP slammed its decamping members, saying it remains unperturbed by the move.
“The attention of the National Leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been drawn to an announcement by members of the so called New PDP declaring their membership of the All Progressive Congress (APC). We recognize the rights of freedom of association for all Nigerians and declare that it is within the rights of any Nigerian citizen to associate with anybody he/she deems fit”, read a statement signed by National Publicity secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh.
“By this open declaration today, those individuals have unveiled their true intent, which most Nigerians suspected ab initio. They have chosen to abandon a broad based National Platform and embraced a narrow group of ethnic and religious bigots whose main intention is to unleash a state of anarchy on Nigeria.
“We wish to state categorically that the PDP remains unperturbed, as we are now rid of detractors and distractions. We urge all our members nationwide to remain focused and close ranks, now that agents of distraction have finally left our ranks”.
The party reminded its members that from the rulings of the court, there are no factions whatsoever in the PDP. It affirmed that in the eyes of the law, the PDP remains one and an indivisible entity under the leadership of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. It also commended the “wise decision” of some of the aggrieved governors to dissociate themselves from the action of some of their colleagues, and assured Nigerians that the PDP will continue to grow from strength to strength and will definitely emerge stronger from this event.
“We reiterate that the position of the law is very clear that there is no factions whatsoever in the PDP”, the statement added.
“We wish to use this opportunity to remind all PDP members that the peace process initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan is still on course and we wish to thank him for his patience, humility and spirit of accommodation. The meeting between the president and aggrieved members shall hold on Sunday, December 01, 2013.
“Finally, we wish to reassure our teeming members that our doors remain open to address all grievances. We shall however not condone any acts of internal subversion from any quarters”.
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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