Why Nigeria Matters
If you ask your average African, they’d tell you that Nigerians are a prideful bunch. This seemingly innocuous opinion goes to show how much Nigerians are aware of their insufferable self-entitlement. This is because the average African as I just mentioned is a Nigerian. Roughly 1 in every 6 Africans is Nigerian. Nigeria holds the title of the most populous black nation both within Africa and around the world. Some of you may not know but there’s a considerable black population outside of Africa. Take Brazil for example; the most populous South American country considers the Afro-Brazilians — that’s Brazilians with some form of African ancestry, to be the country’s official majority.
All the same, because of Nigeria’s mammoth-sized population, she automatically holds the top-dog position among countries in Africa. This dominance is easily manifested in yet another of the country’s shiny titles — “Africa’s largest economy.” Nigeria, just like her Asian counterparts, India and China have shown that a huge population aka labour can easily translate to economic gains — but don’t be fooled. When compared to her African neighbours Nigeria may look rich, but when compared to developed countries and the standard of living their citizens enjoy, Nigeria is humbled. Moreover, Nigerians are not faring well with other measures of success like the human development index which Nigeria and other sub-Sahara African countries lag behind their Northern counterparts like Morocco.
Nevertheless, despite the misfortunes that bedevil the country, Nigeria is still a key player on the continent. Culturally speaking, Nigeria’s single bloc of about 220 million people holds strong sway over the world’s perception of Africa, and in effect, African culture. The country achieves this feat through its outlier entertainment industry. First, it was Nollywood: Nigeria’s version of Hollywood which grew to become the world’s second-largest film producer; and as of 2021 was estimated to be worth 6.4 billion dollars. Ever since the Nollywood saga, Nigeria has replicated the same magic effect with Afrobeats — an emerging music genre that has in recent years taken the world by surprise. But, these are just a few success stories; Nigeria’s failures are equally proportionate to its gargantuan size.
Despite having the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria hosts most of the continent’s poor. This can be attributed to a lot of the harsh realities like gross inequality, the effects of climate change, government negligence and corruption; and the various inter-tribal and religious conflicts that shape everyday life in the country.
In the search for answers, Nigeria’s diverse demography presents an insight into not only the country’s problems but by extension, the continent’s. I promise — this isn’t just hubris coming from your average Nigerian — please, hear me out. Pure, untainted logic suggests that Nigeria’s problems are equally Africa’s. This fact owes to the unique historic, cultural, religious, as well as geographic landscape Nigeria has on the continent.
During the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, coastal territories like Calabar and Badagry now subsumed under modern-day Nigeria proved important because of their strategic access to the ocean. This particular feature was useful first to the Portuguese, and then to the Brits, both of whom peddled heavily in African slaves as commodities. On several occasions, the European stock of human cargo for trans-Atlantic shipping was supplied by warring tribes in Africa who sold the defeated into slavery.
On the topic of inter-tribal conflict, post-colonial Nigeria just like many African countries has had a fair share, historically. To put things in perspective, Rwanda with predominantly two ethnic groups committed one of humanity’s most shocking genocides. Nigeria on the other hand has two hundred and fifty different ethnic nationalities, of course, there’s bound to be conflict, especially as the Brits — the then colonial masters botched the power-sharing between the competing nationalities present in the country.
Nigeria’s most notable ethnic crisis hit its crescendo when the then Igbo-dominated Eastern Region known as Biafra attempted to secede from the union. In what is rightfully referred to as a war of attrition, the Igbos were killed on several fronts. Millions died from the war itself and a famine resulting from a Nigerian government-okayed food blockade. Fast-forward to the present, 2023, and there are yet tribal skirmishes all across Nigeria. This time it involves Fulani cow herders and farming tribes like the Tiv and Idoma who often clash because of the poor land management systems put in place by the government.
Even on the religious end of things, the uniqueness of Nigeria presents its own set of challenges. The two most popular Abrahamic religions — Christianity and Islam are hugely practised in the country. Nigeria’s religious demography is such that the country is split in the middle with the North being majority Muslim, and the South being majority Christian. This, of course, has had its implications over the years. Islamic terror cells like Boko haram and the Islamic State of West Africa have sprung from Nigeria’s Sahel region, which as you would have rightly guessed is sited in the Muslim-majority North. Interestingly, their terror doesn’t just stop up North. Sometime in 2022, these terrorists shot up a catholic church in Owo, Ondo state, Nigeria’s South West — a region unfamiliar with this nature of violence.
Yet again, another African cliché that Nigeria conforms to is the resource trap which has over the years left many countries on the continent wallowing in extreme poverty despite being natural resource-rich. For context: Nigeria is the largest producer and exporter of crude oil in Africa, and for the longest time since the country’s oil boom in the 1970s, Nigeria has relied majorly on the export of crude oil as a source of revenue and foreign exchange. This model has time and time again proved unsustainable on many fronts.
First, placing overreliance on the trade of crude oil opens the Nigerian economy up to the volatility of the international oil markets. When the prices of oil fall in the international market, it leaves the government with less money to spend providing the vital infrastructure needed for growth and development in the country. This was exactly the case in 2016 as the Nigerian economy slipped into a recession because of the dwindling oil prices, internationally.
Again, any revenue in the form of precious foreign exchange earned by the government from the export of crude oil is eaten away when the government spends it importing refined crude oil products like petrol which is needed to run vital sectors of the economy like transportation, and manufacturing. This gaffe is a result of Nigeria’s lack of local refining capacity to satisfy local consumption — talk less of providing refined crude oil products for export. This lays the foundation for the next issue to be discussed: value addition.
Value addition, or more appropriately the lack thereof, is the central reason why Nigeria, and broadly, Africa, still struggles with the vicious resource trap in which it finds itself. Using Nigeria as a model, it is clear that the addition of value in the form of locally refining its primary revenue earner, crude oil, will offer the country immense socio-economic benefits. First and foremost, refined crude oil products like petrol and diesel will fetch more money on the international market. Then again, locally refining crude oil would mean the creation of jobs in Nigeria, a phenomenon that will relieve the country battling with a youth unemployment crisis.
To surmise, Nigeria stands out in Africa and even in the rest of the world because the country possesses key features that designate it the perfect lens through which one can safely view the remainder of the continent.
A way forward?
In proffering a viable solution to Africa’s socio-economic woes, advocates of free trade, with whom I align, have applauded the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which Nigeria is an important signatory to, as an important milestone in nurturing Pan-Africanism. The underlying thinking is that the free trade agreement which spans the length and breadth of Africa, except for a few countries, will enable the free movement of people, goods, and capital. In turn, this will foster a level of regionalism needed to insulate the continent’s young industries involved in the transition from an extraction-only economy to a value-driven one.
