The Similarities between India and Nigeria

Are all developing countries similar?

Stock photo of the Indian and Nigerian flags.

In a recent post,

Nicholas Decker

mentioned that Nigeria had the same traffic problems as India. He was quoting a post that

Rohit Krishnan

had written last year describing India’s traffic.

Nicholas was quoting Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s book The Trouble with Nigeria. I got curious, looked it up and found it to be a very short booklet. The PDF itself is 75 pages long but the main content — excluding the fluff — is about 60 pages. Chinua Achebe divides Nigeria’s problems into 9 chapters, with each chapter pondering a different problem. It was eerie how closely Nigeria’s problems resembled India’s own.

Nicholas slightly modified the Anna Karenina principle, suggesting that while developed countries succeed in their unique ways, developing countries struggle for similar reasons. This idea holds some weight, especially when considering books like Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Their core argument is that prosperity depends on strong, inclusive institutions, while nations that fail to develop them remain poor for a variety of reasons.

Noah Smith likes Why Nations Fail but thinks it oversimplifies things. He agrees that good institutions matter but feels the book ignores other big factors like geography, culture, and historical quirks. He also questions whether their theory explains cases like China, which got rich despite having “bad” institutions. Overall, he finds it interesting but a bit too one-size-fits-all. The other problem is that there’s no exact definition of an institution, which makes Acemoglu’s case a bit weaker — in Noah’s opinion¹.

Which brings us to Chinua Achebe’s book — What exactly is causing this lack of development or institutions in Nigeria? And what similar troubles is India facing?

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The Leadership Problem

In the very first chapter, Chinua says something interesting

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. […] On the morning after Murtala Muhammed seized power in July 1975, public servants in Lagos were found "on seat" at seven-thirty in the morning. Even the "go-slow" traffic that had defeated every solution and defied every regime vanished overnight from the streets! Why? The new ruler's reputation for ruthlessness was sufficient to transform in the course of only one night the style and habit of Nigeria's unruly capital. That the character of one man could establish that quantum change in a people's social behaviour was nothing less than miraculous. But it shows that social miracles can happen.

This compares with the experience India had with the Emergency² imposed from 1975-1977³. Pranab Mukherjee, the former President seems to agree:

In his book The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years, former President of India and Congress stalwart Pranab Mukherjee addressed the Emergency period, during which he was a Cabinet minister. While admitting that it was “perhaps an avoidable event”, Mukherjee chose to focus on the good things that happened. He said there was no doubt that the period had brought a growing economy, discipline in public life, controlled inflation, reversed trade deficit for the first time and a crackdown on tax evasion and smuggling.

I’ve spoken with a lot of people that experienced the Emergency and everyone said the streamlined government and punctual trains was a common theme.

Closer to present day, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s critics acknowledge that his government has produced significant infrastructure and gotten India out of its infrastructure deficit. He’s bringing changes into the bureaucracy including introducing an Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) intended to modernize the bureaucracy. Even the working style has changed. A report from The Week says the following:

Bureaucrats coming to Delhi have noticed a change in the working environment. While some find the gaze stifling, others find the environment clearer. “It is a result-oriented government,” said D.K. Pathak, former director general of the Border Security Force. Principal secretary to the prime minister P.K. Mishra, his predecessor Nripendra Mishra, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar who earlier served as foreign secretary are examples of merit and delivery.

Leadership has been a problem for India since independence. Sure, there've been some stellar Prime Ministers—but also a few duds. I’ll let you decide which ones belong in which category.

I’m not well versed in world history to have an opinion one way or another on the Great Man Theory — which says that great men are the ones having an outsized impact on History — but good leadership can propel a country significantly ahead of its peers⁴.

Tribalism

The Singapore Premier, Lee Yuan Kew, once said that India isn’t a country, but 32 countries arrayed on a British rail line. Winston Churchill remarked that “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator”. There are other analysts and political commentators in India that echo these same views.

Why such views? The diversity of India, both linguistic and ethnic probably exceeds at least the Americas, Europe and Australia. Most European nation states are built on the basis of either language or ethnicity. Superimposing such views on India naturally leads to the conclusion that India should at least be a dozen separate countries.

Current political problems in India only lead credence to this view. The sheer amount of caste pride, linguistic pride and region pride is astounding. Mumbai, India’s financial nerve centre, has seen linguistic chauvinism wax and wane for more than 50 years now. Bangalore, India’s tech hub, is seeing massive amount of anti-immigrant sentiment⁵. India’s caste problems are so well known that I don’t need to list them here. The richer Southern states often have a condescending attitude towards the poorer Northern ones.

Nigeria seems to have the same problems. Chinua Achebe, in his chapter on Tribalism, says⁶

A Nigerian child seeking admission into a federal school, a student wishing to enter a College or University, a graduate seeking employment in the public service, a businessman tendering for a contract, a citizen applying for a passport,filing a report with the police or seeking access to any of the hundred thousand avenues controlled by the state, will sooner or later fill out a form which requires him to confess his tribe. […]

Everyone agrees that there are manifestations of tribal culture which we cannot condemn; for example, peculiar habits of dress, food, language, music, etc. In fact many of these manifestations are positive and desirable and conferrichness on our national culture. […] Prejudice against "outsiders" or "strangers" is an attitude one finds everywhere.

But no modern state can lend its support to such prejudice without undermining its own progress and civilization. America, which we copy when it suits us, should provide an excellent example to us in this connection: that although we may not be able to legislate prejudice and bigotry out of the hearts and minds of individual citizens, the state itself and all its institutions must not practice, endorse or condone such habits.

Replace the word tribe with caste, language or state and this sums up a lot of India’s current problems.

The Cult of Mediocrity

Chinua Achebe blames the cult of mediocrity in Nigeria for its lack of a good public sector. I quote⁷:

Look at our collapsing public utilities, our inefficient and wasteful parastatals and state-owned companies. If you want electricity, you buy your own generator; if you want water, you sink your own bore-hole; if you want to travel,you set up your own airline. One day soon, said a friend of mine, you will have to build your own post office to send your letters! […]

But when it comes to grabbing, we, the elite of Nigeria,hardly ever consider our numerical insignificance in relation to the share of the national loot which we lay claim to or possess already. Let me make the position quite clear. Dangerous as the denial of merit in the nation's system of choosing and rewarding its hierarchy of public servants can be, the real explosive potential of social injustice in Nigeria does not reside in the narrow jostling among the elite butinthe gargantuan disparity of privilege they have created between their tiny class and the vast multitudes of ordinary Nigerians.

That has been the experience with most Indians of the State itself. It infuses millions of dollars into failing PSUs, most state electricity utilities are unviable and unprofitable and because of corruption, there exists bureaucrats that are multimillionaires. Just a day ago, there were huge cash piles found in a Judge’s home who sits on the Delhi High Court — the nation’s second highest court.

Chinua Achebe further goes on to add:

If we were to add the innumerable perquisites which accrue legitimately to the people at the top such as subsidized housing, free access to fleets of official cars, free shopping sprees abroad, etc. and illegitimate perquisites such as uncontrolled acquisition of state land, procurement of market stalls under fictitious names for rental to genuine traders; even procurement for resale of government-subsidized commodities such as rice, beer, cement, etc. —if we were to add all these "invisible" emoluments to the salary there would be no word in the dictionary adequate to describe the institutionalized robbery of the common people of Nigeria by their public "servants."

Indian bureaucrats—fondly called “public servants”—enjoy different perks than in Nigeria, but the real issue remains unchanged. The bureaucracy is, at best, mediocre and, at worst, a finely tuned machine dedicated to making life harder for the average Indian citizen. This isn’t a controversial take; it’s such a universal experience that I don’t even need to cite a source. The evidence? A visit to a government office.

Indiscipline

Nicholas Decker’s post, that I mentioned at the top, already quotes from this section of Achebe’s book. I want to bring out some other references that seem like they are describing India. Achebe says:

Leaders are, in the language of psychologists, role models.People look up to them and copy their actions, behaviour and even mannerisms. Therefore if a leader lacks discipline the effect is apt to spread automatically down to his followers. The less discerning among these (i.e. the vast majority) will accept his action quite simply as "the done thing," while the more critical may worry about it for a while and then settle the matter by telling themselves that the normal rules of social behaviour need not apply to those in power.

How many times have we seen our politicians put up flexes for campaigning and then “forget” to pull them down later? That is such a blight on the urban landscape. How many times have policemen stopped traffic to give right of way to a politician? How many times has the infamous “lal batti”⁸ been abused in traffic?

As if reading my mind, Achebe seamlessly transitions to the siren mentality that pervades Nigeria. It was both eerie and surreal to see his critique of indiscipline mirror India’s own siren culture—only to have him explicitly acknowledge it just a few pages later.

I must now touch, however briefly, on the grave undermining of national discipline which the siren mentality of Nigerian leaders fosters.

In all civilized countries the siren is used in grave emergencies by fire engines, ambulances and the police inactual pursuit of crime. Nigeria, with its remarkable genius for travesty, has found a way to turn yet another useful invention by serious-minded people elsewhere into a child is hand cacophonous instrument for the celebration of status.

In other places the movement of presidents and governors is a sober, business-like affair. In Nigeria it is a medieval chieftain's progress complete with magicians and wild acrobats chasing citizens out of the way. Has it never occurred to anybody that the brutal aggressiveness which precedes a leader's train leaves a more lasting impression on the national psychology than the hollow, after-thought smile and hand-waving two minutes later?

I have no comments to add! This is India’s “VIP”⁹ culture explained succinctly.

Corruption

The Corruption Perception Index ranks Nigeria as more corrupt than India. I don’t know how much these indices can be trusted so I’ll leave it up to you to draw conclusions. But the way Achebe talks about corruption reminds one of the various scams committed in the 2004-2014 era:

Would it be too fanciful then to reckon that the sum of all the fraud committed against the people of Nigeria in the public and the private services would come to a figure so staggering as completely to boggle the imagination?

We have become so used to talking in millions and billions that we have ceased to have proper respect for the sheer size of such numbers. I sometimes startled my students by telling them that it was not yet one million days since Christ was on earth. As they gazed open-mouthed I would add: Not even half-a-million days!

In traditional Igbo lore numbers like one million are called “agukata agba awart”: you count and count till your jaw breaks. And yet it is now the prime ambition of so many to steal so much from the nation.

The 2G scam, the coal scam, the fodder scam and countless others riled the nation. ed The Aam Aadmi Party came to national prominence in 2012, promising clean governance and zero tolerance to corruption. After coming to power in the national capital — Delhi — they promptly indulged in the liquor scam, siphoning away more money from the exchequer. Citizens are left speechless!

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Achebe concludes his short analysis with this:

The importance to society of people like Aminu Kano or Mahatma Gandhi is not that every politician can become like them, for that would be an impossible and totally unrealistic expectation. But the monumental fact which they underscore and which no one can ignore again after they have walked among us is this: Gandhi was real; Aminu Kano was real. They were not angels in heaven, they were human like the rest of us, in India and Nigeria. Therefore, after their example, no one who reduces the high purpose of politics which they exemplified down to a swinish scramble can hope to do so without bringing a terrible judgement on himself.

Aminu Kano was branded the the Gandhi of Nigeria. He took on the feudal elites, pushed for education and women’s rights, and fought to give ordinary people a voice, much like Gandhi did in India. Both men led nonviolent movements, ruffled plenty of powerful feathers, and made life very uncomfortable for the status quo.

It’s telling that Achebe compares one of Nigeria’s best politicians to Gandhi. While quite a few voters have criticized Gandhi, there’s no denying that most would still prefer him over a leader mired in corruption—regardless of their ideological leanings.

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I was struck by the uncanny similarities between the problems India and Nigeria face. Nigeria’s per capita income (adjusted for purchasing power parity) is about $6,000 while India’s is around $11,000. While India’s challenges may not be as severe as Nigeria’s, the nature of the issues they face is strikingly similar. That is reflected to an extent in the GDP difference of the two countries.

Nigeria — an ostensibly secular state — is half Christian, half Muslim and a very small minority practices the indigenous faith systems that managed to resist Islamic and Christian coloniality. Interestingly, on secularism, Nigeria faces many of the same issues as India. Like India, Nigeria may find the implementation of secularism inherently fraught, entangled in its deep cultural and religious complexities. I covered India’s problems with secularism in a previous post.

It's Impossible for India to be Secular

There are vast amounts of literature in the developmental economics space and I am not familiar with even a small fraction of it. I am not going to pretend that Nigeria and India have a silver bullet that can solve their problems. Having said that, some failures appear to be easy to rectify and I hope that they can be solved.

1. Highly recommend the post itself for a better overview. He’s a great writer with a good understanding of developmental economics.

2. She essentially declared herself PM, imposed an Emergency postponing elections indefinitely. Although elections were called in two years, that period was a dark one in Indian democracy.

3. I find the coincidence amusing that Nigeria faced a military coup a month after India lapsed into dictatorship in 1975.

4. Just take a look at Donald Trump and how he’s planning to wreck the American economy along with the global economy.

5. This is just those moving into Bangalore from other parts of the country.

6. Page 7, The Trouble with Nigeria

7. Page 22, The Trouble with Nigeria

8. I asked Perplexity to describe this phenomenon to a Western audience and this is what it had to say:
The "lal batti" (red beacon) is a symbol of power and privilege in Indian politics and bureaucracy. It refers to the red flashing light mounted on top of vehicles used by high-ranking government officials and politicians. This beacon serves as a visual indicator of the occupant's VIP (Very Important Person) status, allowing them to navigate through traffic more easily and command respect from the general public.

The lal batti culture has been deeply ingrained in Indian society, representing a hierarchical system where those in power enjoy special treatment and privileges. For many Indians, especially in rural areas, the red beacon became an aspiration, with families hoping their children would one day achieve a position of authority that warranted a lal batti vehicle.

9. Very Important Person