Nigeria’s economic prosperity is dangerously concentrated in just four locations, leaving tens of millions of Nigerians economically excluded, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group(NESG), has said
The group said Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt account for the bulk of formal economic activity, financial flows, foreign direct investment and corporate headquarters in the country.
It conveyed this in a statement issues by the group’s Head, Strategic Communication and Advocacy,
Ayanyinka Ayanlowo, ahead of the Nigerian Economic Summit (NES #32) billed to hold in Abuja later in the month.
“Meanwhile, vast swathes of Nigeria’s territory, home to tens of millions of people and endowed with rich agricultural land, solid minerals, and cultural wealth, remain economically marginalised,” the Group stated.
It said result is a nation whose aggregate GDP figures obscure profound internal disparities and whose overall competitiveness is constrained by the underperformance of its parts.
The group reasoned that genuine national prosperity requires the deliberate distribution of economic activity, not as a matter of political equity alone, but as a strategic economic imperative.
It said concentrated growth limits Nigeria’s overall competitive potential, while dstributed growth unlocks it.”
The statement assured that the Summit would open the conversation with a hard look at the inefficiencies created by concentration.
“When activity is clustered in a few hubs, infrastructure in those centres becomes overloaded and prohibitively expensive.”
“Lagos’s traffic gridlock alone is estimated to cost the economy hundreds of billions of naira annually in lost productive time, fuel waste, and logistics delays.
“Meanwhile, roads, power assets, and markets in other regions atrophy from underuse and chronic underinvestment.
“Labour migrates en masse from productive regions to economic hubs, depleting the human capital of subnational economies that could otherwise develop competitive specialisations.
“Markets in remote and peri-urban areas remain thin and underdeveloped, limiting the scope for local enterprise and leaving consumers dependent on expensive, long-distance supply chains.
“Scaling Nigeria’s growth is therefore not simply a redistribution exercise, it is a strategy for increasing the total productive capacity of the nation.
“Every state that develops a functional economy is a market, a production zone, and a talent pool that adds to rather than drains from Nigeria’s national potential,” NESG noted.
The NESG said a central proposition of the Scale Nigeria dialogue is that Nigeria’s 36 states and FCT are not economically uniform — and should not be treated as such.
They differ fundamentally in climate, soil types, mineral endowments, cultural industries, human capital profiles, and proximity to regional and international markets.
“A growth strategy that treats them as identical will fail; one that identifies and builds on specific comparative advantages can succeed.
While highlighting latent economic realities already present, the NESG said Kebbi and Niger States, with extraordinary rice production potential, are capable of anchoring a national rice value chain.
It pointed out that Plateau State has potential to develop into a high-value horticulture and cold-chain hub for fruits, vegetables and flowers while
Cross River State has tourism and cocoa economy with export potential.
NESG noted that Kano State has historic commercial and light manufacturing centre with strategic proximity to Sahel and West African markets as Ondo and Delta States have solid minerals, timber and agro-forestry value chains.
“These are not conjectures, they are latent economic realities waiting for the enabling conditions such as infrastructure, investment, policy, and market linkages,” the NESG said.
The statement further explained that
one of the most powerful tools for distributing growth is the development of Regional Value Chains — integrated production and processing systems that link multiple states and communities within a geographic corridor.
“A regional value chain for agriculture, for example, might connect smallholder farmers in a producing state to aggregation and processing facilities in an adjacent state, to logistics networks leading to consumption markets, to export terminals on the coast,” the statement said.
The NESG said NES #32 would explore how the Federal Government, state governments, the private sector, and development finance can collaborate to build the hard and soft infrastructure for these chains, including:
– road and rail connectivity to reduce logistics costs; warehousing, cold storage and logistics hubs; reliable power and water provision for production clusters; market information systems and quality standardisation as well as access to finance for processors and aggregators.
The NESG said for states to attract investment and develop their economies, they must offer competitive enabling environments.
“This means efficient land administration systems, clear and consistent regulatory frameworks, functioning dispute resolution mechanisms, investor-friendly attitudes in state bureaucracies, and proactive, data-driven industrial development policies.
“NES #32 will present an assessment of the subnational investment climate across Nigeria’s states, identifying best practices, persistent barriers, and high-impact reform opportunities.
“State governments will be challenged to compete for investment not through unsustainable fiscal concessions and tax holidays, but through the quality of their governance, the competence of their institutions, and the strategic intelligence of their development planning.
“Ultimately, the geographic distribution of economic activity depends on infrastructure.
“Roads and bridges that connect markets, rail networks that reduce logistics costs, power that enables production, digital connectivity that integrates communities into the national and global economy, and water systems that support agriculture and manufacturing are non-negotiable.
“NES #32 will engage the federal government, state governments, development finance institutions, and private infrastructure investors in a serious conversation about what it would take to build the physical and digital infrastructure of a distributed Nigerian economy — and critically, how to finance and maintain it sustainably through innovative PPPs, blended finance, and subnational capital market instruments.
“The Scale Nigeria dialogue will build the consensus and the actionable policy agenda for an economy that grows not just at its core, but in every corner of the federation.”
