The Nigerian Presidency has pushed back against recent claims made by the outgoing President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, asserting that his remarks do not accurately reflect the progress Nigeria has made since independence.
Dr Adesina had suggested that Nigerians are currently worse off than they were in 1960, citing a decline in GDP per capita from $1,847 at independence to $824 in 2024. In response, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, challenged the figures and narrative, stating that such a conclusion was based on flawed data and an incomplete view of Nigeria’s development over the past six decades.
Taking to his official X account, Mr Onanuga argued that Nigeria has seen remarkable advancements in various sectors, including education, healthcare, infrastructure, and telecommunications.
“Compared with 1960, Nigeria today has more primary, secondary, and tertiary schools. We have more road networks and more medical facilities, private and public. We have phenomenal access to telephones,” he stated.
He highlighted that in 1960, the country had just 18,724 functioning telephone lines for a population of about 45 million. Today, over 200 million Nigerians have near-universal access to mobile phones and digital services, a transformation he believes underscores improved living standards.
Referencing the telecommunications boom of the early 2000s, Mr Onanuga recounted how consultants once advised Vodacom against entering Nigeria due to misleading GDP figures. However, MTN and other operators went on to thrive in the market.
“In its first-quarter results this year, MTN declared revenue of N1 trillion and an increase of 8.2 percent in subscriptions, which took the number of its voice and data users to 84 million,” he noted. He questioned how such growth could be possible in a country that is supposedly worse off than it was in 1960.
The presidential spokesperson maintained that any balanced evaluation would acknowledge the nation’s significant economic and social strides.
“No objective observer can claim that Nigeria has not made progress since 1960. Today, as we await the NBS’s recalibration of our GDP, we can comfortably say without contradiction that it is at least 50 times, if not 100 times, more than it was at Independence,” he affirmed.
Mr Onanuga also disputed the GDP per capita figures presented by Dr Adesina, explaining that in 1960, Nigeria’s GDP was approximately $4.2 billion and per capita income stood at $93—not $1,847. He traced Nigeria’s economic growth to the oil boom of the 1970s, noting that GDP rose significantly during this period, reaching $164 billion by 1981.
“Up until 1980, per capita income did not exceed $880. It rose to $2,187 in 1981 and dropped to $1,844 in 1982. In 2014, after rebasing, it reached an all-time high of $3,200,” he stated.
Furthermore, Mr Onanuga argued that GDP per capita alone is an insufficient metric for evaluating living standards, as it does not reflect the informal economy, income inequality, or social improvements. “GDP masks many activities in a country’s economy. It neither discloses wealth distribution or income inequality nor accounts for the informal economy, which experts have said is enormous,” he concluded.
