Nigeria’s future
I’m not sure there are too many things that display the shortermism of Nigeria’s government than what is happening with NIPOST and logistics companies. It is just the logical continuation of various schemes to extract money from a dwindling formal sector in order to continue funding the hedonistic lifestyles of our elite.
Think about it. In Lagos, Nigeria’s “most successful” state, an association of thugs virtually ran ride-hailing companies out of the market, because of avarice, and because they couldn’t compete. I’ve heard murmurs that the failure to complete two raillines that would unleash the state’s productivity is because of interests such as these.
We have seen the drama surrounding Nigeria’s most successful telecoms firm, and how they have been accused of everything from being traitors to theft, all in a bid to shake them down. We are watching drama surrounding Nigeria’s most successful pay-tv firm, including yesterday’s ridiculousness regarding a product that many are interested in. Then there is the action movie about stamp duties on rents. It’s all a marker as to what is to come.
Think about it. With the rather high unemployment rate coupled with insane inflation, your government isn’t thinking of how to get more people into jobs, rather they are thinking of how to tax more of the formal sector to death. It’s a death wish.
How is it so? It’s in our population.
Basically, Nigeria’s population is growing at 2.6% each year. Our GDP is growing at 1.9% a year. Let us assume that our population really is 200 million. We know that our GDP is about $397 billion. If these two figures hold true, then this is Nigeria in the next 10 years, year-by-year…
Population: 2020–200m, 2021–205m, 2022–211m, 2023–216m, 2024–222m, 2025–227m, 2026–233m, 2027–239m, 2028–246m, 2029–252m, and we’ll end 2030 with 259 million people.
For our GDP: 2020 — $397b, 2021 — $405b, 2022 — $412b, 2023 — $420b, 2024 — $428b, 2025 — $436b, 2026 — $444b, 2027 — $453b, 2028 — $462b, 2029 — $470b, 2030 — $479b.
What does this mean for the far more important figure of per capita income? For each year in this hypothetical future, it means our per capita income will be: 2020 — $1,985, 2021 — $1,976, 2022 — $1,953, 2023 — $1,944, 2024 — $1,928, 2025 — $1,921, 2026 — $1,906, 2027 — $1,895, 2028 — $1,878, 2029 — $1,865, and we’ll end the decade with a per capita income of $1,849, $136 less than the current $1,985. For context, at current exchange rate, $136 is ₦63,376, or what the average Nigerian needs to eat a basic meal each month.
For those of you who like me, love charts, here is what we’ve been playing with in the office.
Graphics guy no dey, or else the infographic would have been scarier. If you want to see the raw data, look here.
Remember, this data assumes that we continue on our current anaemic economic growth rate, and that the government’s harebrained policies don’t drive away more business. Population, I can almost bet, will either remain at 2.6% or grow. Yes, we like to fuck without that much. This chart projects the next 30 years, (2050). If the conditions remain the same, we’ll have by then, 432 million people, GDP of $712 million, and per capita income of $1,616 (₦727,407). Remember that a study says we are on track to overtake China at some point, but while we overtake China, based on our current growth rate and silly policies, taking it to the end of this century, and population rises to 1.6 billion souls, we would have become a $1 trillion economy (as of 2070), but by century’s end, our per capita income would have precipitously dropped to just over $1000. Each Nigerian would have ₦516,558 at the end of this century. Again, this is not counting the snowball effects of bad policymaking.
So, Nigeria is already a hateful place at $1985 per person, imagine what it would be with consistent real decline, and more mouths to feed. Well, I don’t expect to be here by 2100AD, and neither will my kids.