By joshua A NATION OF ABUNDANCE, A PEOPLE OF STRUGGLE
We have the wealth. So where did the prosperity go?
By Hamza Yakubu
I have existed as a Nigerian, in Nigeria, for more than three decades. For as long as I can remember, governance and politics have remained an evergreen subject of conversation.
Governments have come and gone. Political parties have changed names, colours and alliances. Leaders have occupied offices, made promises, introduced policies and left. Yet beneath these changes, some questions remain remarkably persistent.
Why does a country with so much struggle to provide enough for so many?
Why does a nation blessed with oil, gas, solid minerals, fertile land, an enormous market and extraordinary human capital still struggle to translate these advantages into broad-based prosperity?
Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.
Perhaps Nigeria’s fundamental problem is not that we lack resources. Perhaps the more uncomfortable truth is that we have not sufficiently built the institutions capable of turning those resources into shared prosperity.
This thought becomes particularly compelling when viewed through the lens of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s influential book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
The book advances a profound argument: nations do not necessarily prosper because they possess abundant resources. They prosper when their political and economic institutions are inclusive; when they create opportunities for a broad section of society to participate, innovate, invest and prosper.
Conversely, nations struggle when institutions become extractive; when political and economic opportunities are concentrated in ways that disproportionately benefit a few.
Viewed through this lens, Nigeria presents an uncomfortable paradox.
We are not a nation without resources. We are a nation still struggling with how to organise, govern and distribute opportunity around those resources.
Consider a hypothetical scenario.
Suppose Nigeria discovers tomorrow another enormous reserve of crude oil. Suppose we uncover deposits of gold, lithium and other minerals worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Would that automatically transform Nigeria into a prosperous country?
I am not entirely convinced.
We have already experienced the extraordinary economic value of oil. Yet oil wealth alone has not produced the institutional transformation many expected.
The lesson is not that natural resources are inherently harmful. The lesson is that resources become transformative when institutions ensure that their benefits create productive capacity, human capital, infrastructure, innovation and opportunity for the wider population.
This is where our national conversation must move beyond personalities.
Our politics often revolves around individuals: Who is the best president? Who is the best governor? Who is competent? Who is corrupt? Who belongs to which party?
These questions matter. But there is a deeper question:
What happens to the institutions when the individual leaves office?
A good leader can repair a road. A transformative institution can establish a system in which roads are planned, funded, constructed and maintained regardless of who occupies the office.
A good leader can create jobs. A strong economic system can create conditions in which millions of citizens become capable of creating jobs themselves.
A good public servant can resist corruption. Strong institutions can make corruption difficult, detectable and costly even when the next officeholder lacks the same personal discipline.
That distinction is crucial.
Good leadership can produce good outcomes. Good institutions can make good outcomes sustainable.
Imagine a Nigeria where your surname does not determine your access to opportunity.
Where a young entrepreneur from a rural community can compete fairly with the child of a politically influential family because the rules are transparent and predictable.
Imagine public contracts awarded because of competence rather than proximity. An education system that produces skills rather than certificates alone. A government that creates opportunities instead of merely distributing them.
That Nigeria would not need another oil discovery.
It would need to organise its existing advantages differently.
Institutions are not merely government offices or laws written in books. They are systems of incentives. They determine what society rewards and what it punishes.
If competence is consistently rewarded, people invest in competence. If innovation is rewarded, people innovate. But if political proximity is more valuable than productivity, people will rationally pursue proximity to power.
People respond to incentives.
And institutions create those incentives.
Perhaps Nigeria’s greatest resource, therefore, is not crude oil.
It is the Nigerian people.
Nigerians have repeatedly demonstrated extraordinary resilience, creativity and entrepreneurial ability. Our professionals compete globally. Our entrepreneurs build businesses across continents. Our doctors, engineers, academics, artists and technologists contribute significantly to economies around the world.
This raises a painful question:
If Nigerians can thrive when placed in functional systems elsewhere, what could Nigeria become if its own institutions consistently allowed Nigerians to thrive at home?
Perhaps our challenge is not a shortage of talent.
Perhaps it is a shortage of systems capable of fully deploying that talent.
This also changes how we should understand leadership.
Leadership is not merely the ability to occupy office, speak eloquently or command political influence. It is the ability to strengthen institutions, alter incentives and expand the circle of opportunity.
The most consequential leader may not be the one whose name is remembered most loudly.
It may be the one who builds institutions that continue to work long after he or she has left office.
After more than three decades of observing Nigeria, I have become increasingly convinced that our national conversation must move beyond the perpetual search for someone to save us.
Nigeria does not need a messiah.
It needs stronger institutions. Predictable rules. Credible accountability. Economic systems that reward production. Political systems that broaden participation. Leaders who understand that public resources are instruments for building collective prosperity, not prizes to be distributed.
So perhaps the question before us is no longer simply:
“Who will fix Nigeria?”
Perhaps the more important question is:
“What kind of institutions must we build so that Nigeria does not always need someone to come and fix it?”
That is a harder question.
But it is also a more important one.
Nigeria has the people. Nigeria has the resources. Nigeria has the market. Nigeria has the ideas.
What remains is the difficult work of building institutions strong enough, inclusive enough and enduring enough to bring these advantages together.
Perhaps that is the Nigeria we should be fighting for.
Not merely a richer Nigeria, but a Nigeria where the circumstances of one’s birth do not determine the limits of one’s possibilities; where talent does not have to leave home before it can find opportunity; and where public office is measured by the prosperity it creates, not merely the power it confers.
And perhaps, when that Nigeria finally emerges, future generations will not say that we were the generation that discovered the country’s enormous wealth.
They will say something much more consequential:
We were the generation that finally learned how to turn Nigeria’s wealth into the wealth of Nigerians.