Nigeria is a west African country with a large and growing global diaspora. Its population is around 230m. On average, individual Nigerians are poorer today than they were in 2015. Nigeria has more people living on less than $3 per day than anywhere else, having fallen behind India. The Nigerian government has issued "diaspora bonds" to raise money from émigrés for infrastructure projects. Nigeria holds elections in 2027.
When Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo, the elected president, set out to clean up the economy. His liberal policies tamed inflation, spurred investment and raised annual GDP growth to around 7%. It did not last: over the past decade GDP per person has fallen.
Bola Tinubu, who was the governor of Lagos in Obasanjo's day, has been enacting his own structural reforms since taking office in 2023. His government ditched the many official exchange rates, allowing the naira to float, and ended budget-crippling fuel subsidies. The central bank aggressively tightened monetary policy. When Tinubu took office in 2023, the central bank had $7bn in obligations it could not meet; in 2022 alone the government had spent some $10bn on fuel subsidies. The annual inflation rate, which hit a nearly 30-year high of 34.8% in December 2024, fell to 15.2% in December 2025. Following two steep devaluations in 2023, the naira has stabilised. The central bank's foreign-exchange reserves have risen to $46bn, their highest level in seven years. The IMF expects the economy to expand by 4.4% in 2026.
Shell said in January 2026 that it hopes in 2027 to finalise plans, with partners, to develop a $20bn offshore oilfield that has been sitting untapped for over 20 years. ExxonMobil has committed $1.5bn to deepwater development until 2027.
However, some 60% of revenues are consumed by debt service, and the government continues to borrow against future oil sales. Unless it cuts civil-service salaries or restructures loans, extra revenue from recent tax reforms is unlikely to be available for infrastructure, health care or education. Some 42% of Nigerians live on less than $3 a day. The price of a kilo of rice has nearly quadrupled since May 2023, while wages have barely budged.
Nigeria has three major security crises: terrorism by jihadist groups such as Boko Haram; widespread banditry and kidnapping; and conflict between groups of herders and farmers. These crises, concentrated in the poor north, can involve Muslims murdering Christians, but also involve Muslims (and Christians) killing Muslims. The causes are often factors other than religion, such as ethnicity, party politics or disputes over land. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) estimates that since 2020 armed groups have targeted civilians on some 12,000 occasions, leading to nearly 21,000 deaths. Fewer than 400 of those cases targeted Christians for their faith, with fewer than 500 reported deaths. Nigerian governments have done far too little to tackle insecurity, and the army has been accused of killing civilians by human-rights groups.
Kidnapping has become increasingly widespread. On November 21st 2025 gunmen burst into St Mary's, a school in Kwna village in Niger state, and abducted almost half of its roughly 600 students and staff—more victims than the notorious 2014 Chibok kidnapping by jihadists. Three days earlier two people had been killed and 38 abducted in an attack on a church in neighbouring Kwara state. In the north-west the main culprits are criminal gangs known as "bandits", who raid villages, loot cattle and extort civilians; most abductions are financially rather than religiously motivated.
The government claims Nigeria's security forces have killed some 13,500 "terrorists" and arrested 17,000 since Tinubu took office in 2023. Amnesty International estimates some 10,000 people were killed in just his first two years. Cheta Nwanze, a Nigerian security expert, has said "the state is not in control of the one million square kilometres of territory that Nigeria is supposed to be." Tinubu plans to allow states to establish their own police forces—a potentially significant reform, since Nigeria's federal forces are overstretched.
Violence has spread alarmingly close to urban centres farther south. On February 3rd 2026 armed men attacked two villages in the Kaiama region of Kwara state, near the border with Benin, killing around 170 people. When the leader of Boko Haram died in 2021, the group split into two factions. One of them, known as JAS, targets Muslims as well as Christians and has been setting up cells in north-western Nigeria to raise money and gain influence beyond its north-eastern core; conflicts with other bandits have forced it farther west. JNIM, an al-Qaeda-linked group active in the Sahel, formally announced its presence in Nigeria in October 2025 with an attack in Kwara state. New militant groups have also emerged in the forests along the Benin border.
The hundreds of armed groups known as bandits have evolved from stealing cattle and crops to involvement in illegal gold mining, especially in Zamfara state, which has made them richer, better armed and more violent. Jihadists sometimes gain influence by offering protection to communities menaced by bandits. Past military operations against armed groups in Kwara in 2024 and 2025 provoked reprisal attacks so brutal that the army was forced to withdraw. America has dispatched a small team to Nigeria to help with counter-terrorism.
The idea of a "Christian genocide" in Nigeria has gained traction in conservative circles in America. On October 31st 2025 Donald Trump, reportedly having watched a Fox News segment about the ostensible slaughter of Christians, said he would label Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" and threatened to go in "guns-a-blazing" to wipe out "Islamic Terrorists". Massad Boulos, Trump's Africa adviser, acknowledged that "people of all religions and of all tribes are dying". A Pew Research Centre poll earlier in 2025 found that 79% of Nigerians had high confidence in Trump to do "the right thing regarding world affairs"—the largest share of any of the 24 countries surveyed. Nigerians are among the most pro-Trump people in the world.
After USAID was forced shut in early 2025, the Trump administration signed bilateral health agreements worth about $11bn with more than a dozen African countries. Nigeria's $2.1bn deal over five years emphasises preventing HIV, TB, malaria and polio, requiring Nigeria to add $3bn to its own health budget in the same period. The agreement drew a backlash over America's emphasis on delivering care through Christian health-care providers in a religiously diverse country of 230m. Countries must buy American products, grant America access to health data and align policies to the administration's health agenda. The new approach eschews needs-based grants in favour of transactional deals that advance American commercial, security and ideological interests. On average the new deals entail a 49% fall in American health spending compared with 2024 in the first year, with further declines thereafter, according to the Centre for Global Development.
Bola Tinubu became president of Nigeria in 2023. After taking office he recalled Nigeria's roughly 100 ambassadors and has yet to appoint successors.
Muhammadu Buhari led a military government from 1983 to 1985, during which he waged a "War Against Indiscipline" and jailed almost 500 politicians for corruption. He was overthrown by Ibrahim Babangida. After returning to politics as a democrat, Buhari won the 2015 election—the first time an opposition candidate defeated an incumbent at the ballot box in Nigeria. He died in July 2025.
The Nigerian diaspora is one of Africa's most prominent. British-Nigerians have become increasingly visible in British public life, in sport (Maro Itoje, England's rugby captain, has Nigerian parents), business, and politics (Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, grew up in Lagos). Children of African migrants perform above the average in exams in England. Nigerians were the most common foreign nationals working in British care homes in 2023. Some 64% of Nigerian-Americans aged 25 or above have a degree. A big majority of Nigerian-Americans say they believe in the American dream and think that America is "a land of opportunity and freedom."
In China, there are more Nigerians than Indonesians.
Nigeria is the epicentre of Afrobeats, the African pop genre that has gone global. Spotify paid 58bn naira ($36.5m) to rights-holders of Nigerian music in 2024, though because many artists and their labels have links with global firms, little of that stayed in Nigeria. Nigerian artists such as Rema, Davido and Odumodublvck have signed with international labels and perform abroad more often than at home.
Oil accounts for more than 80% of Nigeria's exports. In 2025 the share of oil and gas produced by private domestic companies surpassed that of global firms for the first time in the industry's 70-year history. Nigeria produced 1.47m barrels of crude oil per day on average in 2025, the highest level in five years, according to Rystad, a consultancy. The government hopes to reach 3m barrels per day by 2030, which would put it in the top ten of global producers.
Foreign firms had been leaving the Niger Delta, the industry's heartland, citing the risk of vandalism and theft, for the relative safety of deepwater sites offshore. Since taking office in 2023 Bola Tinubu, a former oilman, has tried to improve things in the Delta by beefing up security, streamlining contracting and dangling tax incentives.
Renaissance Energy, a consortium of mostly local firms, took over Shell's onshore subsidiary in March 2025. Seplat acquired all onshore and shallow-water licences of ExxonMobil for $1.3bn in 2024; in December 2025 Heirs Energies became Seplat's largest shareholder in a deal worth nearly $500m. Oando acquired four onshore blocks from Italy's ENI for $783m and plans to invest $2bn by the end of the decade. The break-even price for local producers is estimated at between $30 and $40 per barrel.
Pipeline losses from theft fell from 10-15% of output between 2020 and 2021 to under 5% since 2022. The Petroleum Industry Act, passed in 2021, obliges firms to pay 3% of their annual operating expenditure to host communities. However, local firms are said to release five times more emissions per unit of oil production than global producers.
In the long run the firms that survive will probably be those that have bet on natural gas. Nigeria has Africa's largest proven reserves of it, and global demand is booming. A cheaper source of power than oil, gas can be used in domestic industries from fertilisers to steel manufacturing.
Nigeria launched its "Outsource to Nigeria" scheme in 2024, offering tax breaks and subsidies to attract BPO firms.
A long-running conflict between nomadic herders, who tend to be Muslims, and settled farmers, who are more likely to be Christians, afflicts central Nigeria. It has worsened since the 2010s as climate-change-induced desertification across northern Nigeria and the Sahel, combined with population growth, has reduced the amount of land available for grazing. Benue state, known as the breadbasket of Nigeria, has seen some 1.5m people displaced. Armed groups from across Nigeria and from neighbouring Sahel countries are believed to be behind many attacks; victims report that some attackers speak unfamiliar dialects of Fulani, a language family spoken as far west as Mali. The proliferation of assault rifles, accelerated by jihadist terrorism in northern Nigeria and the wider Sahel, has made the raids increasingly lethal. Security forces, overstretched by fighting terrorism in the north, often arrive late or are outnumbered.
Property contributed 5.8% of Nigeria's GDP in 2024, almost as much as crude-oil and natural-gas extraction, which accounted for 6.2%. Lagos, which sits on a densely populated peninsula, is experiencing a surge in luxury development: at least 600 flats worth $1m or more each are being built, even though GDP per person is just $800. On Banana Island, a gated sand-filled addition to Ikoyi, land sells for almost $2,000 per square metre, approaching prices in Camps Bay, Cape Town. Lagos may gain as many as 1m new residents a year.
Nigeria has more people without electricity than any other country: more than 90m of its 230m people lack access. The national grid has never carried more than 6GW—a fraction of what South Africa manages (48GW for 63m people) or Bangladesh (16GW for 170m). Generators produce more than twice as much power as the grid; in 2023 Nigerians spent 16.5trn naira ($10.3bn) on off-grid power, equivalent to 60% of the entire government budget for the following year. Total supply reaches about 20GW, a quarter of the country's estimated needs.
Gas plants produce most grid power but run at less than half their capacity, partly because gas prices are capped, making it cheaper for suppliers to burn off gas than to ship it to plants that may pay very little. Just under half the country has never been connected to the grid. More than half the country's manufacturers no longer even try to connect to it.
Distribution companies were privatised in 2011, but more than half have since gone bust. A partnership between Nigeria, Germany and Siemens, signed in 2019 to add 12GW of grid capacity, has completed only a pilot phase. Even after prices quadrupled for the richest households, payments cover only around 65% of the cost of providing power. In March 2025 a consortium including Nigeria's sovereign-wealth fund launched a $500m fund for renewable-energy projects.
Nigeria, with 240m people, generates less electricity than the American state of Wyoming, which has 0.6m inhabitants. State-regulated tariffs are too low for firms to attract the capital they need, yet the government tripled rates for the biggest buyers in 2024, who now pay as much per kilowatt hour as the average American.
Nigeria's 230m people may spend as much as $6bn a year on apparel, mostly imports. Textiles and apparel make up a measly 0.5% of GDP. For a long time local styles did not travel beyond the country's shores, but thanks to its large and growing diaspora, Nigerian fashion has begun to spread. Pop-up events in cities such as London and Houston, the appearance of Nigerian brands in department stores and burgeoning international interest in the fashion scene in Lagos are putting Nigerian styles on the map.
Nigerian fashion has always incorporated foreign techniques and materials. Aso oke, a woven fabric of the Yoruba people in the south-west, uses silky threads introduced during the colonial era. Akwete, made by the Igbo people in the south-east, shows signs of Indian influences. Damask headties were originally Austrian (the priciest fabric still is), though more recently Chinese and Korean. Adire is cotton resistance-dyed with cassava starch and indigo by the Yorubas. Dupe Sagoe became known for importing longer, narrower rectangular damask sheets from Austria, which are easier to tie than the traditional square yard; many damask headties are called "Sagoe" in her honour. Autogele, a pre-tied version, helps those who struggle.
American celebrities who have never visited Nigeria are sporting clothes from the country's top designers on the red carpet. Adebayo Oke-Lawal has showcased his Orange Culture label in Berlin for two years running. Kanyinsola Onalaja, an Italian-trained designer, finishes pieces in Britain before stocking at Saks and Zalando. At least one Nigerian tannery sells hides and skins to suppliers of luxury brands such as Gucci and Ferragamo.
Hopes of manufacturing at scale are held back by an ailing power industry and logistical challenges. Neighbouring Benin is spending $1.4bn of public and private funds on an industrial zone dedicated to its cotton and textile industry, which already accounts for 80% of Benin's export earnings.
The Benin bronzes are a collection of plaques and statues looted by the British when they razed Benin City in 1897, and subsequently bought by museums and private collectors across Europe and America. A global restitution movement has gathered pace: on February 8th 2026 the University of Cambridge became the latest institution to say it would return its collection. In 2018 Godwin Obaseki, then the governor of Edo state (which includes Benin City), announced plans for the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), a multi-million-dollar exhibition space and research institute built on what was once the royal heart of the Benin empire. In 2021 Ewuare II, the current oba (traditional king), accused the museum's team of attempting to hijack the restitution process; in 2023 Muhammadu Buhari, then Nigeria's president, declared the oba the original owner and custodian of the bronzes. The museum's inauguration, planned for late 2025, has been postponed indefinitely amid the dispute.
If voting could change the system, it would be illegal. If not voting could change the system, it would be illegal.