By Christian Okwori
I quickly switch off once someone starts drawing comparison between Nigeria and Ghana, as happens annoyingly too often, even though with little or no practical basis.
Instead, people should compare her with countries of similar population, geographical size, diversity and economic potential by which she has no match in Africa such as Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and the likes
To start with, Nigeria has a GDP of about $450billion, the highest in Africa, compared to Ghana’s $68 billion. Lagos alone has a GDP of $33 billion and if it were to be a country, would have been the 4th largest economy in West Africa
At 203 million population, Nigeria is more than six times Ghana’s population of 31million. In fact Lagos and Kano, combined,are more than Ghana.
In terms of Landmass, Nigeria is more than four times the size of Ghana.
Despite poor power supplies, Nigeria has an installed capacity of 13,000MW, compared to Ghana’s 3550MW.
In terms of Global Fire Power, despite all the ups and downs, Nigeria ranks 35th while Ghana occupies a distant 121st position.
In fact, Nigeria has a military strength of about 100,000 compared to Ghana’s 7,000.
In terms of education, Nigeria has about 10,000 full fledge professors and about 180 universities, where as Ghana has only 238 professors with 44 universities.
Despite perennial corruption, poor governance and nepotism among innumerable ills in Nigeria, compared to Ghana’s picture perfect diplomatic painting by most Nigerians and the world, Literacy Rate, Per Capita Income, Human Development Index and Productivity Index are virtually the same and Nigeria slightly better in some cases.
Ghana’s foreign reserve is about $7 billion with diaspora remittance of $2.6 billion while Nigeria’s foreign reserve is $34 billion with diaspora remittance of $16.8billion
Should we talk about morality ? Let’s not go there!
Aside the more manageable population and some higher sense of discipline, albeit less industrious spirit, anytime you hear people talk down Naija over Ghana, don’t take them seriously.
