Presidency faults AfDB President’s claims on Nigeria’s GDP

The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has faulted the claim by Akinwunmi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), that Nigerians are worse off today than at independence in 1960.

Mr Onanuga made the assertion on his Facebook page on Sunday, noting the AfDB chief claimed that Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $1,847 in 1960 against $824 today, adding that the statement does not align with available data.

“According to available data, our country’s GDP was $4.2 billion in 1960, and per capita income for a population of 44.9 million was $93—ninety-three, not even one hundred dollars,” he stated.

“Our country’s GDP did not rise remarkably until the 1970s when crude earnings ballooned. In 1970, our GDP rose to $12.55 billion. In 1975, it was $27.7 billion; $64.2 billion in 1980; and $164 billion in 1981,” he added.

Mr Onanuga disclosed that it was not until 1980 that Nigeria’s GDP per capita surpassed $880, going further to say that it increased to $2,187 in 1981 before sliding to $1,844 a year after.

Last week, a report quoted Mr Adesina to have linked Nigeria’s economic underperformance to overdependence on oil, years of underinvestment in key sectors, structural flaws and policy missteps during the 20th anniversary of investment bank Chapel Hill Denham.

“Underdevelopment should not be accepted as our destiny. We must break free from this pattern,” the AfDB president was reported to have said.

According to Bloomberg, Nigeria lost the top spot as Africa’s largest economy to Egypt in 2023 after a devaluation of its currency sharply weakened its nominal GDP.

According to a projection by the International Monetary Fund, nominal GDP is estimated to reach $188.3 billion this year, leaving the country in the fourth position on the continent behind South Africa, Egypt and Algeria.

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Mr Adesina, according to the report, stressed the importance of prioritising investment in infrastructure, technology and innovation, adding that Nigeria must become the industrial powerhouse of Africa.

The five critical factors he listed as fundamental to Nigeria’s economic transformation are accelerated industrialisation, availability of electricity, competitive agriculture, innovation-enabled growth and development of modern infrastructure.

“GDP per capita is silent on whether Nigerians in 2025 enjoy better access to healthcare, education, and transportation, such as rail and air transport, than in 1960,” Mr Onanuga said.

“This premise alone suggests why Dr Adesina should not have arrived at his conclusion. 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 added.

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He observed that whatever GDP the National Bureau of Statistics publishes may not include the real picture of the economy if it does not factor in the informal sector.

“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,” Mr Onanuga said.

Nigeria is rejigging its GDP data to reflect current economic realities and include important sectors that were either understated or not captured in the last rebasing in 2014.

Such sectors include the digital economy, e-commerce, mining, creative industry and the blue economy.