President and Chairman of the Boards of Directors, African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Akinwumi Adesina, has said Nigeria will need more rapid economic growth to lift its people out of poverty.

In a speech he delivered on the 20th Anniversary Dinner of Chapel Hill Denham, titled: ‘Reimagining Nigeria by 2050’, the erstwhile Minister of Agriculture, said though “Africa as a continent is proud of Nigeria, but one common issue that never fails to come up is when will Nigeria wake up and take its place in leading Africa.”

According to him, “The day Nigeria develops, it will lift all of Africa with it.” He said the kind of development the country needed requires that it raises the bar on its economic growth and development.

Adesina lamented that Nigeria, unfortunately, today, has the highest number of extremely poor people in the world. His words: “Nigeria’s GDP per capita is extremely low ($1,596) putting the nation in the bottom rung of African countries, compared to Ghana ($2,260), Cote d’Ivoire ($2,530), Namibia ($4,168), South Africa ($6,022), Egypt ($3,457), Morocco ($3,771) and Botswana ($7,820).” He added that Nigeria’s economic growth is anaemic.

“What is especially worrying is that Nigeria is retrogressing; as its wealth per capita declined since independence, when it was $1,847. “If we are to look into the future 25 years, then let’s look back into each of the 25 years since independence. By 1985, 25 years after its independence, Nigeria’s GDP per capita declined to $868. By 2010, the GDP per capita grew to $2,120, but by 2024, the GDP per capita had plummeted to $824, the lowest since independence.

“So essentially Nigerians were much better off at independence than they are today,” he said.