Tinubu dismisses GDP per capita, yet it’s the best measure of prosperity

Olu Fasan

Recently, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, the outgoing president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) stirred the hornet’s nest when he said Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $1847 in 1960 but $824 in 2025, implying that Nigeria is poorer today than at independence. In an ill-tempered response, Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s special adviser on information and strategy, accused Dr Adesina of “sounding like Peter Obi”, the Tinubu regime’s bugbear and “hate figure”. But substantively, Onanuga said Nigeria’s GDP in 1960 was “$93 – ninety-three – not even one hundred dollars.” He went on: “Dr Adesina should know that GDP per capita is not the only criterion used to determine whether people live better lives now than in the past,” adding: “Indeed, it is a poor tool for assessing living standards.”

My interest in this intervention is not the disputed figures, although it’s worth saying that we don’t need to go as far back as 1960 to know that Nigeria’s GDP per capita has massively deteriorated over the years. For instance, earlier this year, the IMF said that Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $3,223 in 2014 but fell precipitously to $835 in 2025. Why then was the Tinubu presidency attacking the messenger when the message is utterly incontrovertible? The truth is, Nigerians are worse off today than at any other time in Nigeria’s recent history.

“If a country’s population is bigger than the size of its economy, its per capita income will be low, throwing its people into poverty!”

But, as I said, the figures are not my focus here. Rather, my focus is on Onanuga’s statement that GDP per capita “is a poor tool for assessing living standards.” By saying that, he implied there’s a better tool. So, what is it? Without attempting to teach my readers basic economics, it’s worth starting with what GDP per capita means. The term consists of two components: “GDP” and “per capita”. The first, GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, measures the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country. It tells us the size of a country’s economy. GDP per capita, on the other hand, is what you get when you divide a country’s GDP by its total population. It is like dividing a household’s total income by the number of people in the household. So, population is central to GDP per capita. If a country’s population is bigger than the size of its economy, its per capita income will be low, throwing its people into poverty!

To be sure, GDP and GDP per capita are not without critics. The strongest criticism of GDP is that it does not measure everything that matters. It only measures things sold in a market transaction and thus have monetary value; everything else is not measured. For instance, if you hire a cleaner to clean your house and pay him or her for the service, that adds to the GDP. But if your daughter or son does the cleaning and is unpaid, that doesn’t count for the GDP. Yet, critics argue that pro bono “service” is valuable too! As for per capita income, its greatest criticism is that merely dividing a country’s GDP by its population and arriving at an average economic output per person, doesn’t tell us that everyone benefits equally. For instance, if you say a country’s per capita income is $835, it doesn’t mean everyone in the country earns that amount: it’s only an average!

Yet, despite the criticisms of GDP and GDP per capita, they remain the main quantitative measures of a country’s prosperity and the general prosperity of its citizens. As Simon Kuznets, who devised the GDP concept in the 1940s, famously put it: “Growth is a rising tide that lifts all boats.” What he meant was that when a country’s economy is growing, that growth will engender prosperity for its citizens. In his book titled Growth: A Reckoning, Professor David Susskind expatiates on that, saying: “GDP is correlated with almost every measure of human flourishing.” Without a doubt, fast economic growth is the most powerful way to tackle poverty and improve job opportunities and living standards. So, Onanuga betrays the economic illiteracy of Tinubunomics by belittling the significance of GDP per capita. Truth is, a nation’s per capita income is an indicator of how well off its people are, and that’s determined by the size of the country’s economy relative to the size of the population.

Unfortunately, Nigeria’s economy is growing ‘anaemically’ while its population continues to surge. For Nigeria’s population of nearly 230 million, the economy needs to be growing at an annual rate of 8 percent, not 3.5 percent, and the growth needs to be of the right quality. For instance, GDP has four components: consumption by citizens, investment by businesses, government spending and net exports. However, in Nigeria, household spending is weak because of low disposable incomes, business investment is hampered by a harsh operating environment and net exports are hindered by Nigeria’s oil dependency. Thus, government spending, fuelled by excessive borrowing and debt, is the only component of the GDP that is guaranteed to spur growth in Nigeria. But while the money spent on public investment, such as the proposed Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, will add to economic activity, it’s often not value for money and, thus, won’t enhance productivity or make ordinary people well off.

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that economic prosperity and higher living standards, determined by higher GDP per capita, are not necessarily synonymous with happiness. There are relatively poor countries, such as Bhutan, which have a very low GDP per capita and yet rank among the world’s happiest nations. Indeed, despite grinding poverty, Nigerians used to be known as “the happiest people on Earth.” This is because happiness is not just determined by money or economic well-being. For several years now, the World Happiness Report has ranked nations based on the happiness levels of their people. The key metrics are GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perception of corruption. In other words, high GDP per capita, high social support, such as state-funded social security, high life expectancy, high freedom, high generosity, and low perception of corruption will increase a country’s happiness level. So, yes, while per capita income is the key determinant of human flourishing, it’s not the only determinant.

But how does Nigeria fare in the 2025 World Happiness Report? Well, overall, Nigeria ranks 105th out of the 147 countries surveyed, which means its people are not particularly happy. Broken down into the five variables, Nigeria ranks 112th on social support, 107th on GDP per capita, 127th on freedom, 121st on perception of corruption and 47th on generosity. Looking at those scores, it’s clear that what really contributes to happiness in Nigeria is the generosity of family and friends and the benevolence of neighbours and strangers. For instance, under the benevolence category, Nigeria ranks 45th on donations, 5th on volunteering and 7th on helping strangers. But Nigeria scores abysmally low on the other variables – GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom, corruption. For instance, on corruption, Nigeria ranks 126th among countries where police will return lost wallets!

So, when Onanuga said GDP per capita “is a poor tool for assessing living standards”, what other tools is Nigeria good at, beyond the benevolence of others? Yet, it’s a symptom of state fragility when most citizens derive their happiness from living on crumbs from other people’s tables. By contrast, higher per capita income is indicative of a prosperous nation and a prosperous people!

BusinessDay NG