I'm not a professional economist. I won't pretend to be. But I've been reading what actual professionals—people far smarter than me—have been saying about GDP. And many of them have called it what it is—crap.
So here's me calling it crap too, but specifically for how it plays out in Nigeria. Because what we have here isn't Gross Domestic Product.
It's Gross Domestic Politics.
The numbers game
Here's what's happening. Nigeria is about to do another GDP "rebasing"—whatever that means. And when they do, the headlines will start flying: "Nigeria is the world's 42nd largest economy!" "Biggest economy in Africa!" "IMF raises Nigeria's 2025 GDP growth forecast to 3.4%!" Blah blah blah.
Politicians will praise the president. The numbers will look excellent on paper. We'll compare ourselves to America and Europe.
Meanwhile, 99.99% of Nigeria remains rotten.
How the game works
GDP counts everything as positive economic activity—even destruction. When disasters hit and require rebuilding, GDP goes up. When people get sick and spend money on healthcare, that's counted as economic growth.
So when a former governor—who was poor before taking office—becomes the richest person in their state and buys a multimillion-dollar Rolls Royce, that spending inflates Nigeria's GDP. It looks good on paper. But what does it actually tell us about the well-being of ordinary Nigerians?
Nothing.
GDP was designed to measure production capacity during wartime, not the welfare of citizens. Even Simon Kuznets, who helped develop GDP, warned against using it as a measure of national well-being. But somehow, we've made this wartime metric the centerpiece of how we judge our country's success.
The Nigerian version
In Nigeria, GDP becomes particularly absurd because of how politics works here. The president appoints the central bank governor. The accountant general of the federation. The head of the National Bureau of Statistics—the people who calculate these numbers.
And somehow, the numbers never disappoint the politicians.
They always look good. Always show growth. Always make the current administration look excellent.
But step outside Lagos or Abuja, tour the country, and tell me what you see. As I write this on July 6th, 2025, the entirety of Nigeria is in a state of decay. Yes, there are skyscrapers. Some clean bathrooms. But the overwhelming reality is dysfunction.
GDP ignores inequality entirely. It can't tell the difference between a society where wealth is shared and one where a few people at the top grab everything. This is exactly Nigeria's problem. The politicians get richer, their Rolls Royces get more expensive, and GDP grows. But everyone else suffers.
What GDP misses in Nigeria
GDP fails to capture informal economies—and in countries like Nigeria, the informal sector represents most economic activity. The trader in Alaba Market. The mechanic in your neighborhood. The farmers feeding the country. Most of their work doesn't show up in official statistics.
Environmental degradation doesn't count against GDP either. A country can be on a "growth path" even while its air becomes unbreathable and its water undrinkable. Sound familiar?
And when Nigerians spend money on healthcare because they're sick from pollution, or on private generators because there's no electricity, or on private security because there's no safety—all of that counts as economic growth in GDP terms.
We're literally counting our suffering as success. Damn what a sham!
The international enablers
The worst part? International institutions play along. The IMF congratulates Nigeria when GDP numbers look good. "Excellent! Good job! You're doing great!" O, borrow more. More!
Meanwhile, people are dying. Literally dying. From preventable diseases, from hunger, from violence that could be stopped with proper governance. O, that g word!
But the numbers look good, so everything must be fine, right? Wrong…
Time for gross domestic profitability
I defer to actual experts to figure out the technical details, but we need a different measure. Not Gross Domestic Product. Not even Gross Domestic Politics.
Maybe Gross Domestic Profitability. Something that measures how individuals in the economy are actually doing. Whether their work contributes to their well-being and society's well-being.
Real progress metrics would track things like life expectancy, environmental quality, inequality, and whether growth is sustainable. They'd ask: when the economy grows, who benefits? Are people healthier? Safer? Happier?
The OECD and other international bodies are already developing "beyond GDP" metrics that measure actual well-being. But Nigeria keeps clinging to the old, broken system because it makes politicians look good.
The truth on the ground
Here's what any honest tour of Nigeria reveals: 99.99% of people are vexed. They're suffering under policies that make their lives harder every day. There's no end to the hardship in sight. No clarity about where things are headed.
But GDP grows.
The politicians keep comparing their Rolls Royces. Keep inflating the numbers with their spending. Keep manipulating the data behind the scenes.
Because all they care about is making that number look a certain way.
An open letter to experts
This is an appeal to economists, statisticians, anyone with the technical knowledge to build something better:
Please help us dump GDP. Help us create metrics that actually measure what matters. Help us stop lying to ourselves with numbers that make everything look excellent on paper while reality rots around us.
It's stupid—irritatingly stupid—to compare ourselves to America and Europe based on GDP while our people perish.
That ain't progress.
Not at all.