Osun Ranks Highest In Nigeria’s Development Indicators

By Francis Ezediuno

Osun has again been ranked as the state with highest in the development performance indicators among the 36 states in Nigeria. 

The rating emerged in a recent development survey conducted by the Nigeria and Africa Development Indicators Monitoring Foundation (NADIM)

In an event to formally launch the NADIM Foundation and publicly present the research book titled ‘Development Performance Ranking of Nigerian States and African Countries in Abuja on Tuesday, the author of the book and Vice Chancellor of the Al- Hikmah University Ilorin, Prof. Mohammed Taofeek Ibrahim, said the survey was a quantitative score card for the state governors to appraise their performances and prioritize development blueprint where needed.

The findings revealed that most of the states in Nigeria have failed to meet all the global development indicators, with only Osun state meeting 64% of the requirements, while Yobe state ranked most poorly in the indicator requirements.

Disclosing the modalities for arriving at the ranking, Prof. Ibrahim said the study utilized data based on the most recent figures released in 2013 by the Nigerian Demographics and Health Survey and the National Population Commission (NPC) with partnership from international bodies like United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on development indicators in Nigeria.

“The basic development indicators include availability of housing, accessible roads, functional healthcare services, schools, water supplies, electricity, functional industries, and employment of youths among others.

“When you look at the summary of some of these indicators, Osun state came out as the best state in Nigeria, followed by Anambra and Lagos states in a close tie of second position, and the third being Ekiti and FCT taking the fourth and fifth positions respectively”.

Prof. Ibrahim explained that the study showed that some states have done well, but no state has done very well and this is affecting the productivity and economic ranking of Nigeria among other African countries.

In his words, “there are states who did very badly scoring under 25 percent of social indicators of development ranking, this has affected productivity in the country generally making Nigeria to be compared with countries like Somalia that is currently in crisis,” he noted.

He said the book is the first indigenous effort by Nigeria to release a credible national data on the performances of individual states, and urged African countries to partner with NADIM to generate development data that will reposition the continent for development strides.

The University Don assured that NADIM will continue to demand accountability from governments across Africa and produce enlightened citizens.

Reviewing the Book, Prof. Olanipekun Kamil Alausa a former Vice Chancellor of Olabisi Onabanjo University, said the book is an attempt by the author to empower the citizens of strategic demands that should form the core of their engagements with governments.

“The whole idea is to make sure that our people know how to make our leaders responsible to their people, we expect states and other countries in Africa to look at their ranking to see the areas out of the indicators chosen that they have not done well and to make efforts to improve on that.

“If a state does not have health facilities for instance the book will expose that, so they can see where they should improve on,” he said.