Nigeria’s Growth Crisis Is a Talent-Allocation Crisis - by: Nasir El-Rufai - 1st April, 2026
Nigeria is often described as a paradox. We are a nation of extraordinary human capital—energetic, inventive, resilient—yet our economic outcomes fall persistently short of our potential. Growth remains shallow, productivity weak, firms struggle to scale, and prosperity does not spread widely enough. Today, I want to advance a clear and uncomfortable proposition: Nigeria’s growth problem is not primarily a shortage of talent, capital, or ideas. It is a problem of where our best talent goes—and why. This is not a moral argument about individuals. It is a political-economy argument about incentives. 1. The Core Insight: Talent Follows Returns Across societies and across history, highly capable people choose occupations that offer the highest returns to ability, especially where small differences in skill translate into large rewards. Economists describe this as increasing returns to talent. When those returns are highest in entrepreneurship, innovation, and production, economies gro...