Lagos, Ogun Nigeria’s most economically viable states — Report

Lagos and Ogun State have been identified as Nigeria’s most economically viable states, a report by Economic Confidential, a subsidiary of PR Nigeria, has shown.

Pointing to Ogun State’s status as Nigeria’s topmost investment destination after Lagos, the report showed that the Dapo Abiodun-led Ogun State outperformed Rivers State, which joined Lagos and Ogun on the list of economically viable states for the year 2022, along with Kaduna, Kwara, Oyo and Edo states.

The report compiled from figures released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) showed that while Lagos received the sum of N370,921,413,425.62 from the Federation Account and generated N651,145,633.085 as internally generated revenue, Ogun, on the other hand, received N113,404,027,439.22 from the Federation Account and generated N120,548,157,140.78 internally.

On the other hand, Rivers State received N363.4 billion from the Federation Account and generated N172 billion; Kaduna received N155 billion and generated N58 billion; Kwara received N99 billion and generated N35.7 billion; Oyo received N181 billion and generated N62 billion, while Edo received N147 billion in federal allocation and generated N47.4 billion.

The results were made known during the presentation of the 2022 Annual States Viability Index Report in Abuja on Monday, showing that the total Internally Generated Revenue of N1.5 trillion from the seven most viable states in 2022, was almost twice the total IGR of 29 states together that merely generated about N650bn.

Six states, however, including Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, and Katsina states, failed to generate up to 10 percent of the total allocations received from the Federal Government for 2022 and were declared insolvent states.

The six states that may not survive without the Federation Account due to their extremely poor internal revenue generation of less than 10 percent compared to their federal allocations are Bayelsa, Katsina and Akwa Ibom, with Bayelsa bottom of the list with N273 billion federal allocation and only N15.9 billion IGR, representing 5.81 percent of the allocations.

Kebbi State with N119 billion FAAC allocation and N9 billion IGR (7.67 percent) joins Katsina N165 billion FAAC allocation and N13 billion IGR, (7.90 percent) on the list of economically unviable states, along with Akwa Ibom, which received N360 billion and generated N34.8 billion (9.66 percent); Taraba, which received N103 billion and generated N10.2 billion (9.91 percent); and Yobe, which received N105 billion and generated N10.4 billion (9.91 percent).

The poorly performing states were unable to attract investments due to socio-political and economic crises, including insurgency, kidnapping, armed banditry, and herdsmen-farmers clashes.