Will Nigeria Be A Future Superpower?

Nigeria is the most populous, wealthiest, and one of the most influential countries in Africa. While Nigeria is currently plagued with many different problems, what are these problems it faces? What does its geography have to do with everything? Are we watching a new future superpower on the rise?

MUSIC:
“King of Lions” by Sight of Wonders
“Caravan Trails” by Sight of Wonders
“Desert Footsteps” by Sight of Wonders
“Inside the Night” by Marc Torch
(All via EpidemicSound)

📖 SOURCES:
Toyin Falola, “A History of Nigeria”

Nif Lindsay, Rebanics, Larry Burch, Tobi Burch-Rates

[fistandpen]

As a Nigerian man (Ijaw/Igbo), I can tell you that this is one of the most accurate, researched short docs on Youtube (from mention of the Sokoto caliphate, bight of Benin to the Ijaw). Also, kudos on pronouncing it as "Lay-gus"

[Doc_Fartens]

That's a fascinating fact about the Benin kingdom/modern Benin. Always wondered why that was so, but never quite curious enough to look it up for myself.

[theconqueringram]

Nigeria does have great potential, but they'll have to clean some things up to be a superpower. Lessening its dependence on petroleum, for starts.

[ccktravis]

How the Nigerians and Japanese came up with the same name for their kingdoms (Edo as in Benin and the Edo period in Japan) is beyond me

[SenaBryer]

An interesting variable to answer this question would be whether or not the East African Federation actually happens

[meneither]

So Nigeria has a lot of things do deal with. They need to diversify their economy, most likely through cheap labor (whether they do it the Indian way or Chinese way remains to be seen.)
They need to reinforce their agricultural sector too unless they want to be dependant on Europe and the Americas for food. They need to reinforce some type of national identity so they don't have others civil wars (given the diversity of the country, India would be a good model.)
And then they'd need some way to influence the region, ECOWAS is a good start I suppose.

[bluesmoke]

If Nigeria stop following behind the west then definitely Nigeria will become a superpower. First they must give out long prison terms to any corrupt government official

[SisterSunny]

'Dr. Congo' is such an amazing, useful pun, which I may or may not hereon use as an abbreviation.

[samwill]

They're gonna have to figure out all the ethnic and religious conflict while maintaining a stable democracy first

[tobirates]

Like Nigeria, KhAnubis has a great wealth of information, plus add the dry humor!

[staberinde]

A geography nerd from Oregon who's an expanse fan? Damn soon I'm going to have nothing left.

[balpreetsingh]

To say that Bollywood puts out most number of movies in the world is incorrect. Bollywood is just the Hindi film industries. Many regional languages have their own gilm industries and when combining them together, the Indian film industry puts out the most movies in the world.

[graceneilitz]

Not a superpower, but a great/major power probably within the next few decades with proper leadership.
Nigeria already is a regional power, so it’s already on the trajectory the superpowers once started out with. Which is being a great power on your continent (area of the world. )
After all, the USSR dominated Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
China dominates east Asia, and the US dominates the Americas. That is not to say that the superpowers are unchallenged, it’s just that they can project both hard and soft power better than everyone else in their region.

[sirela]

Please do a video on Biafra/Igbo culture ❤🎉

[gatlingrove]

God the expanse is so fucking good. Glad I’m not the only one. Books are even better

[andrewrivera]

Super power, no, no way in hell. Great power, no, at least no time soon. Regional power yes.

[matthewbrotman]

Took a couple of seconds for the Togo pun to register 😆

[decus]

Nigeria's dependency ratio is far too high for its GDP (and particularly per capita GDP) to grow at a reasonable rate any time soon. At the current rate of change, it will be the mid 2060s to early 2070s before it's dependency ratio is what India's is today. At that time, I predict Nigeria will begin to do very well. Until then however, it's GDP growth is most likely to remain fairly slow growing at around 2-3% per year, perhaps 3-4%/ year by the mid 2040s and 4-5%/ year by the 2060s.

[wildbull]

The only problem Nigeria have is the politicians in the country.

[KFordmusic]

If they dumped oil money into infrastructure and stopped being greedy for 10 years the country would transform. Crack down hard on lawlessness in the far north. It’s really the leaders keeping all the money holding it back. All they need to do is build proper roads, rail, power, and schools.