Actually the growth that India has witnessed since 2014 when Narendra Modi was elected as Prime Minister has been unprecedented. India's stock markets have been on a one way street higher since the day Modi assumed the PM's office. 

But is it fair to compare India with Nigeria? let us take a look. 

Population - Both India and Nigeria have large populations. India is 1.3 billion people while Nigeria is 220 million plus. India is also about 5 times larger than Nigeria in terms of its area. So you can say that the population density is about the same. 

Most of the populations of both countries live in poverty. However, India has been able to reduce its poverty levels since 2013 while Nigeria's poverty levels have been increasing. 

Manufacturing - India is a manufacturer of goods while Nigeria is a consumption based economy. When India gained Independence from the UK, its government put some policies in place to boost local manufacturing and put heavy duties on imported items. For example it was next to impossible for a person to import a foreign car in to India while in Nigeria, opposite was the case, the government themselves were importing and living on foreign goods.  As a result, foreign companies had to come into India and set up local firms and could not just dump their products in the Country as was the case in Nigeria. 

People of India buy usually Indian made products to a large extent while Chinese made products are also accepted because of low price. You can buy a brand new Indian made car for less than US$ 8,000. Nigerians do not have such options and have to depend on a imported second hand car market thanks to the decisions made by their leaders over the years to not boost local manufacturing. For example last year less than 15,000 new cars were sold in whole of Nigeria. In India, 15,000 new cars get sold in a few days. 

Government - When India and Nigeria gained independence from the British, both countries were democracies. However, Nigeria soon went through a number of coups and military governments while India has always remained a democracy. Although democracy in India was challenged in the mid 1970's when the then Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi imposed an emergency, and jailed all opposition leaders, which lasted for a few years before elections were held and she was defeated. 

Agriculture - India and Nigeria have traditionally been agriculture based economies. However Nigeria lost that plot when it discovered crude oil. Nigerian leaders abandoned its palm oil sector and handed the mettle to countries like Malaysia and Indonesia which carried the palm oil seed from Nigeria to become global leaders in that trade while Nigeria ended up becoming an importer of palm oil from those very Countries and hands them hundreds of millions of US Dollars every year to import what was theirs.  

Even today, it is very difficult to get into agriculture sector in Nigeria due to a security issues regularly affecting farmers. Nigeria does not even have a canal network system to support its farmers yet. It is very easy to lose your life while farming in Nigeria by the so called fulani herdsmen who are so strong that even the Nigerian military cannot defeat them.

India on the other due to government programs had went from strength to strength and become a top producer of wheat, rice, milk and pulses in the world. Today India is self sufficient in food while Nigeria imports rice and other food items from other countries and pays them in Dollars.  Apart from that India also manufactures farm equipment rather than importing from overseas and handing out US Dollars which is the case with Nigeria. 

Oil & Gas - This is the sector that is responsible for almost all the forex that Nigeria earns. This revenue is what keeps Nigeria going. Since its discovery, Nigerian leaders shockingly began to ignore all other sectors of the economy like Agriculture & textiles. 

However there are problems here as well that the Government is not able to solve. There is oil theft to a level that is an industry in itself while many claim that government leaders themselves are involved in this oil theft so it remains unchecked. It is estimated more than half of Nigeria's crude oil revenues are lost due to oil theft. 

On top of that, Nigeria does not have a working refinery. Nigerian leaders chose to decimate their local refineries and carry their crude oil to other countries and then buy refined products back by spending US Dollars. This method of business meant that Nigeria as a Country would suffer economic losses on a daily basis while some chosen few would get very very rich is US Dollars. It also meant that the Naira would continue to devalue over time and it did exactly that.

India is not a crude oil producer but it is one of  the largest refiner of crude oil in the world. The Country decided to get into refining business in order to save Forex and protect its currency from constant devaluations. India is one of biggest buyer of Nigeria's crude oil today. 

Wars & Military - India and Nigeria have both had wars. However Nigeria's war has been an internal civil war between its own tribes and an Islamic insurgency which has been on going for the past 12-15 years in the Northern parts of the Country. 

India on the other had has had a much more difficult experience as it is surrounded by Islamic Pakistan and Communist China. Both of those countries have attacked India in the past on a major scale. As a result, India had to create a strong military, navy and Airforce and it did exactly that. Today, India is the 3rd most powerful nation in the world in terms of its armed forces and is also a Nuclear power again created indigenously. 

Nigeria has had military governments, but its military is dependent on purchasing used weapons from other countries. As a result of the coups, the people of Nigeria generally distrust their military while in India people look up to its military as a protector of democracy. 

Currency - Nigerian leaders by making Nigeria an import based economy ensured that its currency will be weak, while Indian leaders also made blunders in the past especially before Narendra Modi became PM. 

However as the analyst noted, the FDI inflows in India have growth tremendously since Modi became PM. Now the slide of the Indian currency has slowed somewhat and is currently around 83 levels against the USD. 

Nigerian currency on the other hand has been decimated by successive governments that have failed to address its underlying problems like corruption and imports and the currency is now at 1000 levels against 1 USD. The decline of the Naira has been spectacular. It was much stronger than the Rupee just 40 years ago but now opposite is the case. 

Textiles & Clothing- Again India is a producer of textiles and Indians buy clothes made in India with Indian grown cotton and silk. Nigeria on the other hand, does not have a textile industry. Nigeria used to have a textile industry which was decimated by cheap imported clothes from China. Today, Nigeria is a dumping ground for used clothes and fabrics from other Countries. The Government failed to support its textile sector and ensured its downfall by not implementing its own rules regarding imports from Asia. Again, when Nigerians buy clothes, they hand over forex to importers.  

Pharma & Medicine - India has become a global force in the field of Medicine. When Covid-19 hit, India produced its own vaccines and did not import the vaccine from US Companies. India carried out the largest vaccination program on the planet during Covid-19 and also supplied many countries around the world with free Covid-19 vaccines including to Nigeria.

Nigeria has again lost the plot in this sector thanks to its leaders. The leaders failed to support the pharma industry and also failed to hold on to the small companies that were operating in the Country. Some big pharma companies recently exited Nigeria because they cannot compete against cheaper generic products coming into the country from Asia including India. 

India has reached a level where they can produce the same medicines at a much cheaper price so much so that those same Companies cannot even compete with Indian medicines in places like Nigeria. Most of the medicines imported into Nigeria today are done by Nigerians who visit India on a huge scale to do so. 

Entertainment & Movies - Nollywood is Africa's top movie industry however it is a tiny when compared to various movie industries of India like Bollywood, Tollywood and Kollywood. 

This is simply because Nigerian leaders failed to create the movie industry after their independence. Nollywood is a recent phenomenon and the quality of movies being produced is still low when compared to International standards. Nigerians generally watch hollywood movies and even bollywood movies. 

India traditionally is a country full of cinemas wherever you go. Movies are a big part of Indian culture. You can watch a movie in India for 200 Naira in a cheap cinema hall. So it does not require a budget to just watch a movie with friends even for low income population. However in Nigeria, going to a cinema to watch a movie is strictly for rich or at least middle-class people.

A recent Nollywood movie called 'a tribe called Judah' become the country's top grossing movie with a revenue of 1 billion Naira. That is less than a fee of many Bollywood actors charge for 1 movie. Such is the gulf between the two movie industries. Nigeria really needs to invest in its movie industry and make it grow to meaningful levels and stop depending upon foreign investors to do so. It needs to come from within Nigeria to make it happen in a way that supports the economy rather than handing US Dollars out again for something like Movie.

Nigerian music performers have done well and have taken the Country to an International level. 

So after looking at the above points, is it fair to compare Nigeria and India in terms of FDI inflows. The analyst would have done better to compare Nigeria with other countries with similar economies. While India was comparable say 20 years ago, that Country has moved far ahead of Nigeria in any metric that can be discussed. 

Culturally both can still be compared but not in terms of economy. India has a huge Nigerian population while Nigeria also has a big Indian population and people from both countries do business with one another. 

However there is no comparison in terms of economic activities because Nigerian leaders dropped the ball a long time ago. 

However Nigeria can still come back into the race if they can have a leader who is seriously in love with their Country like Narendra Modi is with India. Foreign investors will come back once they can see that they will get a decent return on their investment. Those foreign investors bringing FDI into India and doing so because they know that they will be able to cash out with a high return on investment in a few years time. 

For Nigeria to attract FDI, Nigeria's leaders need to boost local economy and stop the devaluation of the Naira on a regular basis as a place to start. They need to check corruption meaningfully, improve infrastructure and agriculture. 

HAPPY WEEKEND TO ALL !

reporting for easykobo.com on Friday, Jan 5 2024 from Lagos, Nigeria