Nigeria languishes at the bottom of global rankings. What’s it really good at?

In the book titled, “Ranking the world: Grading states as a tool of global governance”, Professor Alexander Cooley of Columbia University says that “rankings appeal to our notion of who’s top, who’s below.” Indeed, they do. But not if your country is perpetually “below”. Sadly, Nigeria is either at, or near, the bottom of global rankings of country performance on such indices as economic management, social progress and good governance.

The latest global index is the inaugural Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI), published two weeks ago. The index ranked countries according to government capabilities and effectiveness. So, how did Nigeria perform? Well, woefully! Out of the 104 countries assessed, Nigeria ranked 102nd, only outperforming Zimbabwe and Venezuela. In other words, according to the index, Nigeria is the third worst nation in the world!

If you are wondering why, well, just take a look at the seven indicators the index assessed. They are leadership and foresight; robust laws and policies; strong institutions; financial stewardship; attractive marketplace; global influence and reputation; and helping people rise. Now, would you say, with hand on heart, that Nigeria has shown even the basic levels of capability and effectiveness in any of them?

I mean: Does Nigeria have a visionary leader with imaginative ideas on how to tackle the country’s problems? Is Nigeria a rule-of-law country? Are Nigerian institutions working? Is Nigeria financially prudent? Is the environment for private investment attractive? Is the Nigerian brand reputable globally? And does Nigeria look after its citizens, ensuring their prosperity and security? I’m sure your answer to each of these questions is a resounding no!

So, the CGGI findings shouldn’t surprise any Nigerian, except those who are part of the problem and those in utter denial about the rut this country is stuck in. As the CGGI rightly points out: “Good government is a deciding factor in whether nations succeed.” But Nigeria is so badly governed that it stands no chance, if the misrule continues, of ever becoming a flourishing, prosperous nation, of ever succeeding as a country!

Of course, Nigeria’s leaders and some of its citizens deceive themselves by saying that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and one of the largest in the world. That’s true. But the gross domestic product, i.e., GDP, on which the size of an economy is based, can simply be a function of a country’s population rather than its productivity. Thus, as the saying goes: “GDP is not destiny.”

For instance, with 206m people, Nigeria is the world’s 7th most populous country and, with a GDP of $375.7bn, it’s the world’s 30th largest economy. Yet, judged by GDP per capita, the real measure of how well-off people are, Nigeria, with a paltry per capita income of $2,230, is 136th in the world. What’s more, as this piece shows, Nigeria languishes at the bottom of virtually all world league tables of government performance across virtually all key indices.

So, Nigeria’s population size and the size of its economy have had no positive bearing on its progress. Indeed, one can say, rather colloquially, that Nigeria is a big-for-nothing country. Think of it: how can a country like Nigeria be stuck at the bottom of international rankings, wallowing in the mud of underdevelopment, poverty and misery with Fourth World countries like Afghanistan and Haiti?

As I said earlier, the Chandler Good Government Index is just the latest to expose Nigeria’s utter fragility. Other international indexes, using robust metrics, have pointed to the same evidence, namely, that Nigeria is too poorly run and too poorly performing that it risks becoming a broken state. Let’s consider a few of the global rankings across some key indicators.

Take economy governance. According to the 2020 Index of Economic Freedom, which measured indices such as rule of law, regulatory efficiency and market openness, Nigeria is “mostly unfree”, with a score of 58.7 out of 100 and ranked 105th out of 178 countries. Of course, being mostly unfree, Nigeria is also uncompetitive. It’s ranked 115th out of 141 in the 2020 World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. Unsurprisingly, it’s also one of the least innovative, ranked 114th out of 129 countries in the 2019 Global Innovation Index. Despite some progress in recent years, Nigeria still ranked 131st out of 190 countries in the 2020 World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. So, on economic governance, Nigeria is at, or near, the bottom of world league tables.

What about social or human development? Well, here again, Nigeria’s global rankings are appalling. Take the United Nations Human Development Index. Nigeria ranked 161st out of 189 countries in 2020 index. The World Bank ranked Nigeria the 7th worst country in its 2020 Human Capital Index. Nigeria was 136th out of 163 countries in the 2020 Social Progress Index, and 144th out of 167 countries in the 2020 Legatum Prosperity Index.

Of course, we already know that Nigeria is the “poverty capital of the world”, according to the Brookings Institution’s Global Poverty report, and the third country most impacted by terrorism according to the 2020 Global Terrorism Index, thanks to Boko Haram and the killer herdsmen, the world’s third and fifth deadliest terrorist groups, which have made Nigeria one of the least safe countries in the world.

Now, all of this adds up to give Nigeria a terrible global image. In the 2019 Country Brand Index, which measured the strength of perception of countries around the world and focused on the 75 largest countries (by GDP), Nigeria was in 68th place out of the 75 countries. The 2017 Good Country Index, which used a composite of statistics of 35 data points mostly generated by the UN, put Nigeria at 126th out of 163 countries. Even worse, Nigeria didn’t even make it into the US News 2020 Best Countries Index, which ranked 73 countries, although South Africa, at 39th, Kenya (53rd) and Ghana (67th) are on the list!

Like me, you may ask: So, what’s Nigeria really good at? Well, everyone talks about Nigeria’s human talent base and natural resources, particularly oil and gas, solid minerals and agriculture. But these are nothing if they are not productively harnessed. Indeed, as Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Finance Minister and now Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, points out in her book, Reforming the Unreformable, oil resulted in the “Dutch Disease” in Nigeria, distorting the economy and turning attention away from other sectors, notably agriculture and manufacturing.

According to one index, Nigeria is the world’s best in three things: the world’s largest producers of yam, cassava and taro. But this is just about production, not export. Nigeria is not a major, let alone the world’s best, exporter of any of these products. Thus, Nigeria remains an undiversified, oil-based, monoculture economy.

So, why does all this matter? Well, proximately, it matters because the world is watching. The indexes influence the perceptions of foreign investors, governments and media about a country. But, more importantly, it matters because Nigeria cannot succeed with bad government, inept leaders and dysfunctional institutions. When you add insecurity and political instability, this could make a country not only a fragile state, but a failed one. Sadly, according to the 2020 Fragile States Index, Nigeria is already the world’s 14th most fragile nation.

Professor Cooley says that global rankings “generate competition” and can “name and shame countries into trying to do better.” Well, not in Nigeria. The utter fragility exposed by Nigeria’s woeful global rankings should shame its leaders into radically transforming the country’s structure, institutions and governance. But they care not a jot about Nigeria’s future. For if they do, they will know that Nigeria is too fragile and that unless its decline is reversed, it could become a failed state!