Lagos leads league of outperformers in Nigeria’s socioeconomic scorecard

Lagos State, Oyo States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) outperformed others in Nigeria’s socioeconomic scorecard, according to Analysts Data Services and Resources (ADSR).

Afolabi Olowookere, managing director and chief economist, ADSR made the disclosure on Tuesday during a Webinar series with the theme: “The Socioeconomic Scorecard of Nigerian States (2023 Baseline Edition).

Olowookere noted that while Nigeria’s average was pegged at 45.79 percent, the outperformers like Lagos, FCT and Oyo scored 62.5 percent, 58.9 percent and 58 percent respectively.

According to him, a total of 57 relevant indicators were used in the construction of the scorecard across 12 key broad socio-economic segments namely economic output; government finance; financial sector; and capital importation.

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Others are land, housing and sanitation, transportation, ICT infrastructure, energy and environment, industrialisation and business competitiveness, education, health, and citizens’ livelihood and welfare.

According to Olowookere, after the elections earlier this year, many of the state governors constituted their cabinets and some are already revising or putting together their States’ Economic Development Plan and Strategy Documents.

“The usual promise is to improve the socio-economic status of the citizens of a state in the next four years and beyond.

“To objectively measure the extent of progress a new administration will be making and set measurable and realistic targets, there is a need to provide baseline data, capturing the current level of the socio-economic performance.

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“Such data are often not easily made available, and when they are, they may not be in easy to understand, readily usable, and comparable formats and this scorecard, therefore, seeks to fill this gap.

“The aim is to provide baseline data and highlight the relative performance of, and aid effective policy making at, the sub-national level of government in Nigeria,” he noted.

He said that generally across all states, the best performing segments were the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at 58.31 percent and, the financial sector at 51.96 percent.

The renowned economist revealed that the least performing sectors were transportation at 34.24 percent, and citizens’ livelihood and welfare at 37.14 percent.

He also added that the least performing states are Yobe at 34.5 percent, Gombe State at 35 percent and Sokoto State at 36.8 percent.