Preamble
A sector-by-sector audit of 66 years of independence — the dreams, the development plans, the oil boom, military interventions, democratic experiments, wasted opportunities and the difficult search for a new national direction
By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-chief)
On October 1, 1960, Nigeria stepped into independence carrying an enormous burden of expectation. The country was not without problems. It inherited weak industrialization, limited infrastructure, regional inequalities, a largely agrarian economy and a political system whose foundations had been laid by the departing colonial power. But there was also extraordinary optimism.
Nigeria had human resources. It had fertile land, rivers, forests, minerals, a large market, an emerging educated class and a strategic position in Africa. Its regions had already demonstrated that development was possible when leadership combined vision with disciplined execution.
The old Western Region of Nigeria presently known as the South-West geo-political zone had pioneered free primary education under the regional Premiership government of late Chief Obafemi Oyeniyi Awolowo popularly referred to ' Baba Awo'. The old Eastern Region known today as South East geo-political zone under the Premiership, at different times, of Nigeria's first republican President, Owelle Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Dr Micheal Iheonukara Okpara and Chief Eyo It's, had invested heavily in education and enterprise. While the old Northern Region of Nigeria known today as both North East, North West geo-political zones, and then the North Central zone otherwise referred to as the old Middle Belt region, under the Premiership of late Alhaji Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna of Sokoto) had begun its own programme of modernisation.
The new federation possessed agricultural commodities that earned foreign exchange and an emerging manufacturing and commercial sector. The central question at independence was therefore not whether Nigeria possessed potential but whether she could convert potential into national prosperity. Sixty-six years later, that question remains painfully relevant.
Nigeria has grown enormously in population, universities, banking, telecommunications, technology, infrastructure, entrepreneurship, entertainment and international influence. It has survived a civil war, repeated military coups, economic crises, oil-price collapses, institutional failures and political upheavals.
Yet the country also carries a contradictory record: immense natural and human resources alongside mass poverty; oil wealth alongside energy poverty; universities alongside millions of children outside school; democratic elections alongside persistent institutional weaknesses; a large economy alongside widespread unemployment and insecurity.
The World Bank's current data place Nigeria's population at about 238 million in 2025, while access to electricity stood at 62.5 per cent in 2024 and life expectancy at about 55 years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that poverty remained extremely high in 2026 and that about 27 million Nigerians experienced food insecurity by the last quarter of 2025, even as macroeconomic reforms began producing stronger growth and improving fiscal and external positions. This is the central paradox of Nigeria at 66. The country has not failed completely. But it has not come close to fulfilling its potential either.
1960: THE COUNTRY THAT COULD HAVE BEEN
At independence, Nigeria inherited a parliamentary federal system and an economy based substantially on agriculture and commodity exports.Cocoa products came principally from the West Region. Groundnuts and cotton were important in the North. Palm produce was a major export from the East. Tin was important in Jos. Coal was mined in Enugu. The country possessed a broad agricultural base before petroleum became the dominant source of foreign exchange.
The early development philosophy was therefore relatively straightforward: invest in education, infrastructure, agriculture, transport, industrialization and manpower.
As a matter of historical fact, the nation's First National Development Plan between 1962–1968, sought to create the foundations for self-sustaining growth. It was the first major post-independence attempt to translate national aspirations into a coordinated development programme. The plan was interrupted by political crisis and the civil war. Nigeria's historical planning record subsequently produced the Second National Development Plan (1970–1974), the Third National Development Plan (1975–1980) and the Fourth National Development Plan (1981–1985). The tragedy, however, was that planning never became a permanent culture of implementation.
Nigeria repeatedly produced impressive plans but struggled to create institutions capable of maintaining them across changes of government. NNL.
