…Why economic reform requires institutional reform first
Nigeria has spent more than three decades reforming its economy. Yet perhaps the country’s biggest economic mistake is that it never truly reformed the institutions expected to deliver those reforms.
That is why every administration seems to arrive with a new economic blueprint yet leaves behind many of the same economic frustrations. The reforms change. The institutions largely do not. This is the paradox at the heart of Nigeria’s development story.
We debate inflation, exchange rates, public debt and taxation. We celebrate new policies and analyse new budgets. But we pay far less attention to the institutions that determine whether those policies ever become economic outcomes.
It is like replacing the engine of a vehicle while leaving the transmission broken. The problem is no longer the policy. The problem is the system expected to execute it. This is Nigeria’s real economic challenge.
