The Presidency has faulted recent comments made by outgoing African Development Bank President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, suggesting Nigerians were economically better off at Independence in 1960 than they are today.
Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga on Monday dismissed Adesina’s claims as “inaccurate and misleading”
In a statement shared via his X handle, Onanuga said Adesina’s comparison of GDP per capita between 1960 and 2024 lacked both factual grounding and broader economic context.
Dr Adesina, speaking at a recent event, had reportedly referenced statistics from Nairametrics that placed Nigeria’s GDP per capita at $1,847 in 1960, compared to $824 today.
But Onanuga refuted that the figures were simply “not correct.”
“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 GDP did not rise remarkably until the 1970s, when crude earnings ballooned.”
Onanuga backed his claims with historical data showing GDP growth over the decades—$12.55 billion in 1970, $27.7 billion in 1975, $64.2 billion in 1980, and $164 billion in 1981.
He added that per capita income stayed under $880 until 1980, only peaking at $3,200 in 2014 after GDP rebasing.
“These facts raise questions about the source of Dr. Adesina’s figures,” he wrote. However, Onanuga noted that the issue wasn’t just with the numbers, but also what they were used to imply.
READ ALSO: Tackling Poverty, Unemployment Key to Nigeria’s Security Challenges, Says Adesina
He said GDP per capita alone could not capture a population’s true wellbeing.
“It is a poor tool for assessing living standards,” he explained. “GDP per capita is silent on whether Nigerians, in 2025, enjoy better access to healthcare, education, and transportation than in 1960.”
He pointed to the nation’s expanded infrastructure, improved public services, and digital transformation over the decades.
“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 said.
To illustrate, Onanuga recalled that at the time of Independence, only 18,724 phone lines served 45 million Nigerians.
“Today, over 200 million Nigerians enjoy near-universal access to mobile phones and digital services, indicating we are better off than 65 years ago,” he said.
He also recalled how Vodacom, a South African telecoms company, had once avoided investing in Nigeria based on GDP estimates that suggested Nigerians could not afford mobile services.
“MTN and other adventurers came later, and they laughed all the way to the bank,” Onanuga said. “In its first-quarter results this year, MTN declared revenue of ₦1 trillion and an increase of 8.2 percent in subscriptions, which took the number of its voice and data users to 84 million.”
He then asked, “Does this MTN experience correlate with a country worse off than in 1960, when we had analogue telephones and the number of lines was fewer than 20,000?”
Concluding, Onanuga stated, “No objective observer can claim that Nigeria has not made progress since 1960… Adesina spoke like a politician, in the mould of Peter Obi and did not do due diligence before making his unverifiable statement.”