In the early 1960s, Nigeria stood tall as Africa’s undisputed economic giant.
Fresh from independence in 1960, the country boasted a GDP per capita that rivalled or exceeded many peers.
By the 1970s oil boom, Nigeria’s income per person actually surpassed China’s between 1970 and 1975.
In 1981, Nigeria alone accounted for nearly 31% of sub-Saharan Africa’s entire GDP.
Nigeria had fertile land, vast oil reserves, a large domestic market, and an ambitious post-independence leadership that believed in state-led industrialisation.
Compare that to South Korea, Taiwan, and China in the same era. In 1960, South Korea’s GDP per capita was roughly equal to Nigeria’s. Taiwan and China were poorer.
Yet those Asian tigers pursued ruthless economic diversification. They invested in education, built export-oriented manufacturing, and created world-class industrial policy.
South Korea went from exporting wigs and plywood to cars and semiconductors. China turned peasant agriculture into the factory of the world.
Nigeria? It doubled down on oil and left agriculture to wither. The result is a painful counterfactual: had Nigeria grown like South Korea or China since 1960, our economy today would be several times larger than it is.
Nigeria built a string of massive state-owned enterprises that could have industrialised not just Nigeria, but the entire continent. Nigeria invested billions in the Ajaokuta Steel Complex starting in 1979.
By the mid-1990s, it was 98% complete, the largest steel plant in Africa, designed to produce 3.3 million tonnes annually. Imagine if Ajaokuta had operated like Mittal Steel: supplying cheap, high-quality steel rods and plates to build bridges, railways, and factories from Dakar to Addis Ababa. Africa’s infrastructure deficit could have been tackled with Nigerian steel.
NNPC was meant to be more than a crude exporter. With Nigeria’s gas reserves, it could have built a network of filling stations across West and Central Africa and piped natural gas to power plants from Accra to Kinshasa. Instead, it flares gas while the continent imports refined products and suffers blackouts.
Nigerian Airways, once Africa’s pride, operated a fleet that reached Europe and the US. Had it been managed like Emirates, it would have connected every major African airport, turning Lagos into the true aviation hub of the continent. Today, Ethiopian Airlines dominates intra-African routes and turns handsome profits while Nigeria’s national carrier’s dreams remain grounded.
NITEL held a monopoly on telecoms. Properly run, it could have built an Africa-first data and voice network, a homegrown Airtel or MTN. Instead, Nigeria watched South Africa’s MTN sweep the continent. State-owned banks like First Bank and UBA, alongside NICON Insurance, could have offered long-term development loans to African governments and businesses at concessionary rates. Nigeria’s capital could have funded roads, ports, and factories across the region, creating a virtuous cycle of trade and investment anchored in Lagos. Nigeria never executed that vision.
While Nigeria dithered, Africa moved on. Ethiopia built Ethiopian Airlines into a profitable pan-African carrier that flies to more destinations on the continent than any other.
Algeria turned Sonatrachm its “nnpc” into one of Africa’s largest companies by revenue. Egypt’s Ezz Steel became a major producer and is now eyeing expansion into Algeria. South Africa’s MTN built the telecom empire that NITEL could have created.
Today, Nigeria has reduced its ambitions to embarrassing lows. We celebrate when power generation crawls toward 5,000 MW, a fraction of what a country of 230 million people needs. We still lack a modern national rail network worthy of the name.
The 2026 budget focuses on incremental projects, while the real conversation should be about building the industrial backbone of 21st-century Africa.
Nigeria has one remaining undisputed giant: the youthful population. With a median age of just 18, Nigeria has the largest concentration of young people on earth. This is Nigeria’s last, best chance. The path forward is clear. Educate them ruthlessly, not just certificates, but world-class technical and entrepreneurial skills.
Reform the curriculum to teach coding, engineering, agribusiness, and global trade. Unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that already powers our fintech, Nollywood, and Afrobeats success stories.
Cut the red tape that strangles small businesses. Create special economic zones with reliable power and fast internet. Use sovereign wealth funds and pension assets to back Nigerian startups that can scale across Africa.
Nigeria does not need to beg for leadership in Africa. We need to earn it again through competence, not nostalgia. The continent has waited long enough.
If Nigeria refuses to industrialise Africa, others will, and they already are. The data is clear. The choices we make in the next decade will determine whether Nigeria becomes the industrial engine of Africa or a cautionary tale in economic history textbooks.
