Facts and figures

Facts and figures
Headline indicators and citable figures across the Fourth Republic. GDP values are in constant 2015 US dollars. Governance scores follow the World Bank WGI composite (-2.5 to +2.5). For the full data and interactive charts, see the Dashboard.

Counterfactuals

Scenario estimates from the cross-country regression model. These are correlational, with wide confidence intervals; see methodology.

~$0.6 to $0.9T
BRAZIL-LEVEL GOVERNANCE
Cross-country regression point estimate against a Brazil benchmark. 95% confidence interval: −$113B to $1.2T. Read as an order of magnitude, not a forecast.
~$187B
JUNE 12 SCENARIO
If MKO Abiola's 1993 election had been honoured, an additional 6 years of democratic governance is associated with roughly $187B more GDP. Extrapolated, not modelled. Wide error bands.
~$421B
NO 1966 COUP SCENARIO
If Nigeria's first military coup had not occurred, an additional 33 years of democratic governance is associated with roughly $421B more GDP. Extrapolated, not modelled. Wide error bands.
~2×
PEER-LEVEL GOVERNANCE
At a peer governance benchmark, the central estimate for Nigeria's economy is roughly twice the current $520B. The same 95% confidence band applies.

Presidential comparisons

Obasanjo (1999-2007) and Buhari (2015-2023), the two longest-serving Fourth Republic presidents, side by side.

14x
GDP DIFFERENCE
Obasanjo added $138.6B in 8 years. Buhari added just $10B in 7 years.
7.7%
VS 0.3% GROWTH
Annual GDP growth rate: Obasanjo achieved 7.7%, Buhari achieved 0.3%.
-$305
PER CAPITA LOSS
GDP per capita fell 11.8% during 2015-2022. The only negative per-capita period in the dataset.
+$631
PER CAPITA GAIN
Under Obasanjo, every Nigerian got $631 richer on average.
-11%
MANUFACTURING
Manufacturing contracted during 2015-2022. It grew +10% during 1999-2007.
7x
SERVICES GAP
Services growth: Obasanjo $63.1B vs Buhari $8.9B.

Commodity output by president

Change in the total value of Nigerian agricultural output attributed to each president, from what they inherited to what they handed over. Constant recent producer prices. See the Commodities dashboard.

+$10.4B
OBASANJO
Yam expanded most (+$4.9B), cassava added +$2.1B, coinciding with the 2002 Presidential Initiative on Cassava Production.
-$7.8B
YAR'ADUA
Inherited multiple 2006-2008 commodity peaks (sorghum, cocoa, cassava). Three-year term registered as the only net-red administration by the ownership convention.
+$11.0B
JONATHAN
Cassava +$2.9B, rice +$1.5B during Akinwumi Adesina's tenure at Agriculture. Yam kept climbing.
+$11.2B
BUHARI
Headline growth carried mostly by yam (+$7.2B); maize and sorghum stalled. Cattle slipped -$154M.
+$1.6B
TINUBU (2 YEARS)
Two crop years in. Yam holding (+$1.7B); maize and millet sliding. Partial number.
+33%
MAIZE MARKUP
Farm gate to retail markup on maize in the NFPT snapshot (Nov 2024 to Jun 2025). 6 of 10 tracked staples cost more in rural areas than in cities.

Governance

-0.99
BEST YEAR: 2015
Nigeria's best comparable WGI composite score in the record. The 2024 reading is re-estimated on a different basis and is not used for the comparison.
-1.48
WORST YEAR: 2002
Nigeria's worst single WGI reading, during Obasanjo's first term.
+0.21 / +0.20
TWO IMPROVERS
Jonathan (+0.21) and Obasanjo (+0.20) are the two Fourth Republic presidents whose terms ended with a higher governance score than they inherited. These are also the only two changes that rise above the WGI's own measurement error; read the rest as flat.
-0.13
BIGGEST DECLINE
Yar'Adua's three-year term saw the largest per-term governance drop of any Fourth Republic president. Buhari's term followed at -0.08.
r=+0.72
RULE OF LAW
Rule of Law has the strongest correlation with GDP of any governance component; Control of Corruption follows at r=+0.59.
Years, not months
THE LAG
Governance effects take years to show up in the economy. Earlier versions of this site headlined a precise "optimal" lag; we've stopped, because picking the delay that maximises a correlation is a data-dredging trap.

The decouplings

Levels correlations for Nigerian macro-micro series look strong because everything drifts up over time. Year-on-year, the same relationships collapse to noise. This is the honest reading. See Cost of living and methodology.

+0.57 / -0.16
AGRICULTURE VS GOVERNANCE
Levels correlation looks meaningful. Year-on-year, farm output does not track governance. The relationship is trend, not signal.
+0.71 / +0.03
HARVEST VS FOOD PRICES
Growing more food does not make food cheaper. Levels correlation +0.71 is two upward trends. On year-on-year change, effectively zero.
+48% / +893%
YAM: OUTPUT VS PRICE
Between 2015 and 2024, yam production rose 48%. The yam retail price rose 893% over the same window. The kitchen price is set by the currency and policy, not the harvest.
-0.23 / +0.18
OIL VS GDP
Even the "oil drives GDP" story is weak on the current data. Levels weakly negative, year-on-year only +0.18. The petrostate narrative doesn't survive the honest test.
+75% / +58% / +1,407%
GDP, HARVEST, FOOD
Between 2007 and 2024, GDP grew 75%, commodity output 58%, food prices 1,407%. Three of these numbers are in the same conversation. Food is on a different planet.
+0.68 / ~0
GOVERNANCE VS GDP
Levels r=+0.68 (the headline number). Year-on-year, effectively zero. Governance associates with GDP on the long horizon, not month-to-month.

Sectors

0.02 → 100+
MOBILE SUBSCRIPTIONS PER 100
From near-zero in 1999 to above one line per person by 2022, following the 2001 GSM licence auction.
-3.9%
OIL CAGR
Oil rents declined annually while global prices rose. The divergence is attributable to production inefficiency and output decline.
20% to 5%
OIL SHARE
Oil's share of GDP fell from 20% to 5%, driven more by oil output decline than deliberate diversification policy.
+$244B
SERVICES ADDED
Cumulative services-sector output added across the Fourth Republic.
+21%
POWER ACCESS
Electricity access increased from 40% to 61% over 25 years. Sub-Saharan average is 50%.
r=0.49
TELECOM-GOV LINK
Telecommunications has the strongest governance correlation of any sector.

Welfare and human impact

40% to 56%
POVERTY SURGE
Poverty rate rose 16 percentage points between 2018 and 2023.
3x
DEBT TRIPLED
External debt rose from 9.4% to 29.0% of GNI between 2015 and 2023.
+8 years
LIFE EXPECTANCY
Life expectancy improved from 46.6 to 54.5 years (1999-2023).
51.9 to 33.9
GINI IMPROVED
Income inequality (Gini index) improved significantly over 25 years.
$2,586 to $2,325
PER CAPITA STALL
GDP per capita peaked at $2,586 in 2015. It sat at $2,325 in 2024, roughly 10% below the peak. Nine years, no net per-person gain.
$541B
2024 GDP
Nigeria's GDP in constant 2015 dollars, up from $161B in 1996. That's growth of roughly +236% over 28 years.

Cost of living

What households actually pay, and how it lines up with the official inflation number. Prices from the World Bank RTP and WFP archives. See the Cost of living dashboard.

3.3×
PETROL SHOCK
Petrol price rose 3.3x between 2022 and 2025 after the May 2023 subsidy removal. Diesel and cooking-gas gaps remain (NBS data required).
7×
STREET DOLLAR
Parallel-market naira went from ₦192 to ₦1,371 per USD (2015 to 2024). Almost all of it happened after June 2023's naira float.
×9.1 vs ×4.4
POOR'S INFLATION
A basket of essentials (rice, beans, yam, eggs, beef, petrol) rose 9.1x since 2015. Official CPI rose 4.4x. The prices households can't dodge ran at roughly 2x the official rate.
+1,319%
BEANS LED EVERYTHING
The poor's protein rose the most, 2015 to 2024. Rice +926%, yam +893%, eggs +705%. Petrol +469% for context, the least of the tracked essentials.
+32%/yr
FOOD UNDER TINUBU
Real food-basket price change per year, 2023 to 2024, after inflation is stripped out. The largest single-term food shock in the record.
-5.5%/yr
FOOD UNDER JONATHAN
Real food prices actually fell across Jonathan's term. The only administration where household food got measurably cheaper.

Historical briefs

+9.3%
THE SAP GENERATION
After the 1986 Structural Adjustment Program, inflation jumped from 17.8% to 27.1% average. The Naira crashed from parity to N22/$1 by 1993.
39.1%
ABACHA INFLATION
The Abacha regime (1993-1998) averaged 39.1% inflation - the worst of any Nigerian government. Peak: 72.8% in 1995.
+0.48
1999 TURNAROUND
The transition to democracy produced the largest single improvement in governance in Nigerian history: +0.48 points on the WGI index.
2,948%
BRAZIL VS NIGERIA
Brazil's 1990 inflation ran roughly 40× Nigeria's worst single-year reading. By 2023 the gap had inverted: Brazil 4.6%, Nigeria 24.7%, following the Real Plan in 1994.
$18B
DEBT RELIEF 2005
The Paris Club wrote off $18 billion in Nigerian debt in 2005, reducing the country's interest payments.
2001
TELECOMS REVOLUTION
GSM license deregulation triggered rapid private-sector growth independent of broader governance trends.

From the stories

$1,408 to $0.67
WHAT ₦1,000 BUYS
₦1,000 was worth $1,408 in 1960. By 2024, at the parallel rate, it bought $0.67. The full collapse, year by year, is in SAP, Sapa?
≈2,000×
THE SALARY TEST
A 1985 salary would need to be roughly two thousand times higher today to buy the same things. Not 20% more. Two thousand times.
45¢
FOR EVERY OIL DOLLAR
Of an estimated $601B earned from oil, roughly $269B left through illicit financial flows. About 45 cents on every dollar. See For Every Dollar, Forty Cents.
97%
COURTS BUDGET = SALARIES
Roughly 97% of the judiciary budget goes to salaries and overheads, about 3% to everything else: courtrooms, records, technology. See Fix the Courts, Now.
₦76.6B
EFCC BUDGET, 2024
The anti-corruption war chest grew from about $60M in 2010 to ₦49.9B in 2023 and a proposed ₦76.6B in 2024. Rule of Law, the component that actually correlates with growth, is not where the money goes.
Cheaper in dollars
THE CURRENCY TWIST
Priced in US dollars, petrol and beef both got cheaper between 2015 and 2024. The cost-of-living crisis lives in the currency your wages are paid in. Naira, not dollars.

How sure are we

±0.2
MEASUREMENT NOISE
The WGI publishes standard errors of roughly 0.15 to 0.25 for Nigeria. Most per-president governance changes sit inside that noise. Only Obasanjo (+0.203) and Jonathan (+0.208) rise tentatively above it. The honest headline: measured governance barely moved in 28 years.
12 of 12
WEIGHTS TESTED
We recomputed the Aso Rock Index under twelve alternative weightings. The 2015 peak held under every one. The weights change the level, not the ranking. Full table in the methodology.
~180 years
AT CURRENT PACE
Extrapolating Nigeria's 28-year rate of governance improvement, closing the gap to the global average takes on the order of 180 years. A scenario, not a forecast. The rate is not fixed; that is the point. See the Development Clock.

Ready-to-cite one-liners

Copy Obasanjo-era GDP grew $138.6B over 8 years. Buhari-era GDP grew $10B over 7 years, a 14x difference in total GDP added.
Copy GDP per capita peaked at $2,586 in 2015 and sat at $2,325 in 2024, a decade of net regress.
Copy External debt rose from 9.4% to 29.0% of GNI between 2015 and 2023.
Copy Poverty rate rose from 40% to 56% between 2018 and 2023.
Copy Democracy periods show 2x the economic growth rate compared to military rule.
Copy Governance-gap estimates range from roughly $0.6 trillion (single-country regression) to $0.9 trillion (cross-country panel). All are correlational with wide confidence bands; oil prices confound the relationship.
Copy Petrol prices rose 3.3x between 2022 and 2025, most of it in the eleven weeks after the May 2023 subsidy removal.
Copy A basket of household essentials rose 9.1x since 2015 while official CPI rose 4.4x, roughly double the reported inflation.
Copy Beans, the poor's protein, rose 1,319% between 2015 and 2024, the largest increase among tracked staples.
Copy Nigerian yam production rose 48% between 2015 and 2024. Retail yam prices rose 893% over the same window.
Copy Harvest volume and food price show a levels correlation of +0.71 but a year-on-year correlation of only +0.03. Growing more food does not make food cheaper in Nigeria.
Copy Jonathan's term (+0.21) and Obasanjo's term (+0.20) are the only Fourth Republic presidencies where the WGI composite improved.
Copy Rule of Law shows the strongest sub-indicator correlation with GDP per capita in Nigeria (r=+0.72), ahead of Control of Corruption (r=+0.59).
Copy ₦1,000 was worth $1,408 in 1960. At the 2024 parallel rate, it buys $0.67.
Copy For every dollar Nigeria earned from oil, an estimated 45 cents left through illicit financial flows: roughly $269B out of $601B.
Copy About 97% of Nigeria's judiciary budget goes to salaries and overheads. Roughly 3% is left for courtrooms, records, and technology.
Copy Priced in US dollars, petrol and beef both got cheaper between 2015 and 2024. The crisis is the naira, not the goods.
Copy The WGI's published standard error (about 0.2 for Nigeria) is larger than most per-president governance changes. Measured governance barely moved in 28 years.
Copy We recomputed the Aso Rock Index under twelve alternative weightings. The 2015 peak held under every single one.