The political economy of Nigeria: challenges and opportunities for reform

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy, is populated by dynamic and talented citizens, but has faced steep challenges in development, leadership and governance.
Poverty is widespread. The country is currently embattled by terrorism, general insecurity, a depressed economy, and by challenges from separatist agitations to the existential legitimacy of the Nigerian state.

How can Nigeria achieve transformation economically and politically? Taking a political economy approach into the Nigerian conundrum, this public lecture by Professor Kingsley Moghalu, Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Martin School, examines how the West African country’s foundation as a British colony, and contemporary challenges of nationhood and political order formation, the resource curse of oil, corruption, and the absence of a strong leadership culture have created incentives for Nigeria’s current dysfunction. He identifies not just seven critical challenges, but also offers seven paths to reform and a longer term resolution of the country’s political and economic challenges. The result, if his prescriptions happen, could be the long-delayed emergence of Africa’s first truly indigenous global power.