The Development Clock

If Nigeria keeps improving at the pace it has managed since 1996, how long until its governance reaches the world average?

186years

That's the reading from the World Bank's governance scores for 1996 to 2023. At this pace, Nigeria would reach the world average around 2210.

How we work it out

  1. Where we started. In 1996, Nigeria scored −1.225 on the World Bank's governance scale. The world average is zero, so we started 1.225 points behind.
  2. How far we've come. By 2023 the score was −1.070. That's 0.155 points closed in 27 years, or 13% of the gap.
  3. The pace. 0.155 points ÷ 27 years = 0.00574 points a year.
  4. What's left. We're still 1.070 points behind. 1.070 ÷ 0.00574 = 186 years.

The governance score is the average of the World Bank's six Worldwide Governance Indicators: voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. Scores run from about −2.5 to +2.5.

Nigeria's score against the world average

The shaded space between the line and zero is the gap still to close.

Source: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators (comparable series, 1996 to 2023). Hover a point for the exact score.
Nigeria's governance score by year

How to read it

  • It's arithmetic on the record. It assumes the next few decades look like the last three, and they don't have to.
  • The World Bank scores countries against each other, with the world average set at zero every year. So the clock is about catching up with the rest of the world, not only about improving on our own past.
  • Progress has been so slow that the reading swings a lot as each new year of data arrives. With data up to 2015 it read about 81 years. With data up to 2022 it read about 514. The direction over many years tells you more than any single reading, which is why we update it every year.
  • The 0.155 points gained since 1996 is smaller than the World Bank's own margin of error for Nigeria's scores, roughly 0.15 to 0.25. Measured governance has barely moved.
  • We use the World Bank's comparable series through 2023. Its 2024 figures were re-estimated and can't yet be compared with earlier years, so they're left out.

Keeping it running

When the World Bank publishes new governance scores, we add them and update the reading. Alongside each update, we want to log the economic events that shaped the year and explain what they meant for people. Some of the events already in the record:

  • January 2012Partial subsidy removal (Occupy Nigeria)
  • May 2016Subsidy price adjustment ₦86.5→₦145
  • May 2023Tinubu: 'subsidy is gone'
  • June 2023Naira floated

We're looking for partners to help us do this properly: tracking economic events as they happen, putting them in context, and feeding each new year into the Development Clock.

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