Nigeria must leverage university potential for wealth creation to drive growth – Aduloju

…says Indonesia points way

Oluwatayo Aduloju, chief executive officer at Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has expressed regret that Nigeria, compared to Indonesia and others has not achieved adequate economic and social development due to neglect of universities’ potential in wealth creation.

Aduloju disclosed during his 2025 University of Lagos’ convocation lecture titled “Universities as Hubs for Development, and Wealth Creation” on Monday, January 13, when he said that universities ought to be hubs of development and wealth creation and that the burden of proof is on Nigerians to demonstrate if this is indeed the case.

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“It is nearly impossible to discuss the progress of humanity and the continuous advancement of society without considering the development of human knowledge. This process of gaining knowledge is crucial to our evolution as a species. The link between our shared learning and national advancement should be obvious, widely acknowledged, and not require deep justification or thought.

“As a result, our universities, which are responsible for delivering both general and specialised knowledge, should play a key role in shaping the values and beliefs that influence the growth of individuals across all countries,” he said.

However, he expressed concerns that this commonly accepted notion often fails to capture the actual effect of learning and knowledge on human advancement in Nigeria, particularly regarding the university system and the diverse levels of expertise it can offer.

“The divide between towns and gown limits universities’ potential as centres for development and wealth generation, this is a well-established fact. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, he noted.

Aduloju said for the comparative analysis of Nigeria and Indonesia’s history of development and wealth creation, the NESG invited Peter Lewis, a professor of the University of Michigan, USA, based on his groundbreaking study and book Growing Apart: oil, politics, and economic change in Indonesia and Nigeria.

According to him, Lewis demonstrates that while Nigeria and Indonesia had very similar GDPs in 1965, between 1965 and 2017, Indonesia left Nigeria behind.

By 2017, Indonesia’s economy was nearly 2.7 times the size of Nigeria’s. Nigeria and Indonesia: Comparative Size of the Economy, 1965-2017 (constant $2010).

Regarding people’s standard of living, he said that Nigeria had a much better standard of living (in terms of GDP per capita), at approximately $1400, compared to Indonesia’s roughly $700.

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Between 1965 and 2017, Indonesia more than quadrupled its GDP per Capita to over $4000, while Nigeria peaked at $1800 in 2017. In the same period, Indonesia reduced its poverty rate (in terms of percentage of population under $1.90/day @ PPP) from 71.4 percent to 5.7 percent. At the same time, Nigeria moved marginally from an average poverty rate of 53 percent to 55 percent in 2017.

He explained that Indonesia transformed its workforce and institutions from being extractive to focused on diversified and inclusive growth.

“This allowed Indonesia to move from raw material commodity dominance in Export Trade (which in the 1960s (65 percent Agriculture and 30 percent Petroleum, to in the 1980s (75 percent Petroleum, 25 percent Agriculture; in 2017 (50 percent Manufacturing, 20 percent Petroleum).

“By 2021, Indonesia’s Balance of Trade was $177 billion, and it was the 31st World Exporter, with a positive trade balance of $3.3 billion (ECI, 2021). The ECI for Indonesia illustrates the strategic shift in the computational capacity of the Indonesian society to produce more complex products,” he noted.

He said that like Indonesia, in the 1960s, Nigeria’s predominant export was 90 percent agriculture, which shifted to over 90 percent petroleum. Despite the significant diversification of the GDP, in 2017, 92 percent of Nigeria’s exports were still petroleum, and in 2021, they were just above 80 percent and services approximately 10 percent.

“Therefore, Nigerian institutions have remained extractive. So, Nigeria remains uncompetitive mainly in trade. This is more than a policy problem; it is a development problem: it requires addressing the institutional capacity, the ideas that drive policy, the leaders who decide and execute the policy, and the society that must benefit from the outcomes.

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“Consequently, what we individually attain in terms of the highest academic achievement is significant, but more important is the computational, collective, accumulated knowledge of society to solve its problems,” he said.