By Lemmy Ughegbe, PhD
In Nigeria, progress is often announced with a flourish. Oil production surges, security victories are recorded, revenues climb, and officials speak proudly of gains.
In the past week alone, Nigerians have been told of several such wins. Oil production, according to regulators, rose to 1.78 million barrels per day in July, the highest in nearly two years.
The Customs Service intercepted over 1,600 endangered parrots and canaries at Lagos International Airport, marking one of the country’s largest wildlife trafficking busts. After a tense week-long walkout, public hospital nurses suspended their strike following government assurances to address their demands.
These are not trivial achievements. In a country wrestling with chronic insecurity, economic contraction and institutional malaise, any progress ought to be recognised. Yet the real test of progress is not in the announcement but in the lived experience of the people. If Nigerians cannot feel it in their homes, markets, farms, schools and hospitals, then progress has left them behind.
Take the oil production story. On paper, it is a clear win. An extra 300,000 barrels per day at current Brent prices hovering around 83 dollars could mean more than 24 million dollars in additional daily export revenue. For a country battling a dollar shortage and a depreciating currency, that is no slight relief. Yet history and challenging experience tell Nigerians not to expect that relief to trickle down.
We have been here before. In the mid-2000s, when oil prices soared above 100 dollars a barrel, the Nigerian state enjoyed unprecedented earnings. Yet poverty rates climbed, infrastructure crumbled, and health and education sectors remained underfunded.
Compare that to Norway, another oil-producing nation. Norway channels a significant portion of its oil wealth into its sovereign wealth fund, now worth well over one trillion dollars, ensuring that future generations benefit from today’s extraction.
Closer to home, Botswana’s diamond revenues have been managed with a long-term vision, financing education, health and infrastructure without excessive leakage. Nigeria’s challenge is not the absence of gains. It is the inability or unwillingness to convert them into a tangible public good.
The nurses’ strike tells a similar story. The suspension of industrial action is good news for patients, but it masks a healthcare system on life support. The grievances, which include poor pay, dangerous staffing ratios and crumbling facilities, are unresolved. Nigeria’s nurse-to-patient ratio stands at an alarming one to one thousand six hundred, far worse than the World Health Organisation’s recommended one to two hundred. By contrast, South Africa averages about one to three hundred, still short of WHO standards, but better than Nigeria’s figures.
The ongoing japa wave is accelerating the collapse. According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, more than forty-two thousand nurses sought verification to work abroad in 2023 alone. Compare this to Ghana, which recently renegotiated nurse salaries upward and introduced retention bonuses to curb migration. Or to Rwanda, which implemented a performance-based financing model that links nurses’ pay to measurable health outcomes, leading to improved retention and morale.
These examples point to a larger reality: professional loyalty is eroding because the state has failed to create an environment where skill, sacrifice and service are rewarded. In the absence of such an environment, Nigerian nurses, doctors, teachers and engineers will continue to seek fulfilment elsewhere, leaving behind a country drained of its human capital.
It is not enough for the government to hail the end of a strike. The objective measure will be whether the promised reforms are implemented and sustained. Nigerians have grown weary of timeline politics, which involves setting deadlines without delivering on them. The cycle of crisis, negotiation, promise and disappointment has become an entrenched feature of public sector relations.
Then there is the widely reported wildlife seizure. It is commendable that customs officers prevented more than 1,600 protected birds from being smuggled out of the country. This is an important win for biodiversity and a clear message to traffickers.
Yet a difficult question remains. If the state can mobilise efficiency to protect birds, why does it struggle to protect human beings from bandits and kidnappers? The swiftness with which the parrots were rescued stands in stark contrast to the protracted helplessness in the face of mass abductions of schoolchildren in Zamfara, Niger and Kaduna.
Equally pressing is the deepening crisis in the power sector. This week, two more electricity distribution companies, including Ikeja Electric, one of the largest in the country, were placed under court-ordered receivership. That makes six of the eleven distribution companies now in distress. For ordinary Nigerians, this is not corporate drama. It is the reality of darkness, unreliable power and rising generator costs.
Contrast this with Kenya, which has achieved more than 75 per cent electricity access and is on track to be powered mainly by renewable energy sources by 2030. Or Morocco, which has invested heavily in solar energy through projects such as Noor Ouarzazate, now one of the largest concentrated solar plants in the world, reducing dependence on fossil fuels while expanding access. Nigeria’s power crisis is not inevitable. It is a consequence of policy inconsistency, political interference and lack of sustained investment.
These examples highlight a persistent pattern. Our so-called gains often remain trapped in the realm of macroeconomic or administrative milestones. They are rarely converted into micro-level improvements that citizens can touch, feel or taste. Progress that does not move the people forward leaves them standing still or worse, sliding backwards.
Different yardsticks measure real progress. Can a mother in Zamfara access life-saving care for her malnourished child without selling her only assets? Can a young entrepreneur in Kano keep a shop open without spending more on diesel than on stock? Can a farmer in Benue transport her yams to market without losing half of them to bad roads and insecurity? Until the answers to these questions change, Nigerians will remain spectators to their country’s celebrated wins.
Nigeria’s policymakers should study countries that have bridged the gap between official achievement and public benefit. In Vietnam, economic reforms have been accompanied by strong investment in healthcare and education, ensuring that human development indicators mirror GDP growth.
In Costa Rica, environmental enforcement victories go hand in hand with rural eco tourism initiatives that create jobs and lift communities.
In Singapore, economic transformation was matched by large-scale housing, education and healthcare reforms that ensured citizens saw and felt the benefits of growth. The lesson is straightforward. The value of progress is not in its announcement, but in its absorption by the citizenry.
To ensure progress does not leave the people behind, there must be deliberate links between national revenue and citizen welfare. Oil production increases must translate into measurable improvements in public services, from subsidised health insurance to infrastructure upgrades.
Labour disputes must be addressed not only with promises but with enforceable reforms that restore dignity to work.
Enforcement wins, whether against wildlife traffickers or smugglers, should be matched by equally resolute action against threats to human life. Critical sectors such as power must be insulated from political interference and anchored in a clear, well-funded roadmap for universal access.
The measure of leadership is not in how many milestones can be listed at a press conference. It is in how many lives those milestones transform. Until Nigerian leaders embrace this truth, progress will continue to be recorded on paper while the people remain stuck in hardship.
*Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D, writes from Abuja
Email address:lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
