Nigeria’s strategic peer group: The countries we should really be competing with

Nations, like people, reveal something about themselves by the company against which they choose to be measured. For much of Nigeria’s modern history, our comparisons have tended to oscillate between the unattainable and the familiar. We travel to Britain and wonder why government works differently. We admire German industry, Singaporean efficiency and American innovation.

Then, when the conversation turns homeward, we compare Nigeria with itself: the naira today against the naira ten years ago; growth under one administration against another; the universities of the 1980s against those of today.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these comparisons. Advanced economies establish standards worth aspiring to, while every country must understand its own trajectory. But neither comparison adequately answers the more important question: which countries are competing for the economic opportunities Nigeria itself needs?

Nigeria is not principally competing with Britain for the next major electronics assembly plant. It is competing with Vietnam. It is not competing with America to become an emerging industrial economy. Countries such as Indonesia are more relevant. If a manufacturer wants a production base linking Europe and Africa, Morocco is already in the contest. If the global economy is seeking large numbers of English-speaking engineers, developers, analysts and pharmaceutical professionals, India is an unavoidable competitor.

These countries are not templates for Nigeria to copy; they matter for a more compelling reason: in different ways, they are competing for parts of the future Nigeria believes should belong to it.

Behind the abstractions of globalisation lie thousands of decisions made every day in corporate investment committees. Where should the next factory be built? Which city should host a regional headquarters? Which country can supply skilled workers at scale? Nigeria is participating in that contest whether our national conversation acknowledges it or not.

Indonesia is perhaps the most uncomfortable place to begin because it removes many of our favourite explanations for underperformance. It is vast, populous, ethnically diverse, resource-rich and geographically complex. It has experienced authoritarianism, corruption and severe infrastructure deficits. Yet it has sustained growth around 5 per cent, built a substantial industrial base and kept manufacturing at roughly one-fifth of GDP. Its merchandise exports reached about $282 billion in 2025 compared to Nigeria whose entire economy was approximately $291 billion.

The comparison is imperfect, but the implication is difficult to ignore. Both countries possess large populations and significant domestic markets. Yet Indonesia has travelled much further in converting those endowments into productive capability.

Nigeria has spent decades celebrating what it possesses. Indonesia increasingly asks what its possessions can be made to produce. That distinction is significant because advantages are inherited, while competitiveness is built.

Vietnam makes the point even more sharply. Few countries entered the closing decades of the twentieth century with a history that appeared less conducive to rapid prosperity. Yet after decades of reform and integration into global production networks, Vietnam had become by 2025 an extraordinary export platform. Its economy grew by about 8 per cent, while goods exports reached approximately $475 billion – roughly 93 per cent of GDP.

Pause on the scale of that figure. Vietnam’s annual merchandise exports substantially exceeded the current-dollar value of Nigeria’s entire economy.

There are qualifications though. Vietnam imports large quantities of intermediate goods, foreign-owned firms account for a significant share of exports, and the country still needs to deepen domestic value addition. But those caveats do not erase the central achievement. Vietnam has made itself useful to global production.

When electronics firms, apparel companies or industrial manufacturers ask where they can produce reliably and sell into world markets, Vietnam is already part of the conversation. And that is the benchmark that matters.

Morocco offers a different lesson. It demonstrates that geography itself has little economic value until a country learns how to exploit it.

Morocco happens to sit close to Europe and astride major maritime routes. But location alone did not create Tanger Med, now one of the most important port and industrial complexes in Africa and the Mediterranean. By 2023 it was connected to more than 180 ports, handling 8.6 million containers and supporting more than 1,300 companies. Container throughput rose to roughly 11.1 million units by 2025. Around that logistics infrastructure Morocco has developed automotive, aerospace, textile and agribusiness industries.

The port matters, but the larger achievement is the system surrounding it. Roads, rail, industrial zones, skills and investment institutions have been assembled around geography until geography itself became competitive advantage.

Nigeria also possesses geography. We have an Atlantic coastline, access to West Africa and the commercial possibilities of the African Continental Free Trade Area. But a coastline is not a logistics strategy. Nor does proximity to markets guarantee access to them.

Countries do not merely inherit strategic geography. In economic terms, they manufacture it.

India completes the comparison because it exposes another persistent misconception: the belief that population is itself economic power.

India is vastly larger than Nigeria and therefore unsuitable as a simple peer. But its experience illustrates what happens when parts of a huge population are systematically connected to global demand. Indian services exports rose from roughly $158 billion in 2013/14 to around $387 billion in 2024/25. India has built global strength in software, business services, pharmaceuticals, engineering and increasingly sophisticated manufacturing.

Nigeria’s 238 million people therefore represent neither a demographic dividend nor a demographic disaster in themselves. They represent possibility. Whether that possibility becomes prosperity depends on what those people are able to know, make, solve, invent and sell.

Seen this way, Nigeria’s strategic peer group is not really a collection of countries. It is a collection of challenges. Indonesia asks whether Nigeria can convert scale and resources into economic complexity. Vietnam asks whether Nigeria can become somewhere the world actually produces things. Morocco asks whether we can convert geography into connectivity. India asks whether we can convert people into globally valuable capability.

Other countries will be relevant to specific questions. Estonia may offer lessons in digital government; Singapore in logistics; South Korea in industrial upgrading; Brazil in agriculture; Rwanda in particular dimensions of administrative performance. Benchmarking should be functional rather than fashionable. We should study countries not because they are celebrated success stories, but because they have solved problems Nigeria must solve.

This requires a change in how we think about progress.

Nigeria naturally compares itself with its own past. If a port reduces clearance times, government records an improvement. If electricity generation rises, we compare the figure with the previous year. If GDP grows, we compare it with the previous quarter.

These comparisons are legitimate. But they can create an illusion.

Suppose a Nigerian port reduces cargo clearance from eight days to four. That is a dramatic 50 per cent improvement. Yet if a competing location clears similar cargo in hours, the manufacturer deciding where to build a factory is unlikely to reward Nigeria for the percentage change.

For government, Nigeria has improved. For capital, the relevant comparison is still the alternative. That is the difference between progress and competitiveness. Governments measure progress against yesterday. Investors measure countries against one another.

Capital has no sentimental attachment to Nigeria’s national story. It simply asks whether electricity will be available, whether goods can move, whether skilled workers can be found, whether regulations are predictable, and whether an investment made today can still make sense fifteen years from now.

Nigeria’s size may attract attention, but it cannot command investment. This is why recent improvements in Nigeria’s macroeconomic position deserve both recognition and perspective. Growth strengthened to around 4 per cent in 2025, external balances improved and difficult reforms have begun to repair important distortions. Those gains matter. But the strategic question cannot end with whether Nigeria is doing better than Nigeria did yesterday.

It must extend to whether we are closing the distance between ourselves and the countries competing for the industries, investment and technologies of tomorrow.

For more than half a century, perhaps the most durable word in Nigeria’s economic vocabulary has been “potential”. Potential is valuable because it describes what might be possible. But it becomes dangerous when possibility is mistaken for achievement.

Indonesia is converting scale. Vietnam is converting production. Morocco is converting geography. India is converting people. None has completed the journey, and all have formidable problems of their own. But each demonstrates the distance between possessing an advantage and organising it.

Nigeria should study that distance carefully. We do not need to become Indonesia, Vietnam, Morocco or India. Nigeria’s eventual model must emerge from its own history, institutions and ambitions. But we can no longer afford to judge ourselves only against yesterday, or only against the richest countries we hope one day to resemble.

When the next global manufacturer chooses where to locate production, Nigeria will not be judged by the magnitude of its potential. It will be judged against the alternatives.

The task, therefore, is neither to imitate our peers nor to defeat them in some imaginary league table.

It is simpler, harder and more important: Nigeria must become the country that makes choosing Nigeria rational.

Dr Hani Okoroafor is the Founder of The Capacity Institute and the originator of the Capacity State Framework, a body of work dedicated to advancing the study and practice of institutional execution capacity. He advises corporate boards and senior executives across Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BusinessDay. Reactions welcome: [email protected]