Nigeria, graded against the hand it was dealt
14 corrections · 4 sourced · 29 judgements, not sourced.
Corrections
What we got wrong
Said
The level comes out at twenty nine.
Now
Thirty seven point one today.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
In two thousand and one the composite stood at twenty seven. By two thousand and sixteen it had climbed to thirty.
Now
Twenty eight point six in two thousand and one. Thirty four point four in twenty sixteen.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
Nigeria rose for fifteen years and it has been falling for ten.
Now
Nigeria did not rise and then fall. It rose in every single period.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
Eight of the ten pillars sit below where they stood in two thousand and sixteen.
Now
Five of its ten pillars sit below twenty sixteen, not eight.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
The intergenerational ledger, which asks whether a country is investing or eating itself, eighteen. That is the lowest single figure on the board
Now
Fifty nine, out by forty one points. The correction film names the measure as adjusted net saving; the sourced record computes the 59 from three World Bank series: adjusted net saving, carbon dioxide per head and public spending on education.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
Rule of law, thirty two.
Now
25, computed from published data (V-Dem rule of law, judicial constraints on the executive and political corruption indices; Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index). The first judgement is kept beside it so the size of the miss can be seen.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · The Country Instrument web tool (sourced.js, generated 2026-10-02); not voiced in any film
Said
Human outcomes, twenty.
Now
27, computed from published World Bank data (life expectancy, under five mortality, maternal mortality, learning poverty, homicide, Gini index). The first judgement is kept beside it so the size of the miss can be seen.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · The Country Instrument web tool (sourced.js, generated 2026-10-02); not voiced in any film
Said
Against its own hand, Nigeria comes out eight point eight points below what that endowment predicts.
Now
And the shortfall against its own endowment is not eight point eight. It is nought point eight.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
Eighteen point two points below what that hand predicts.
Now
The United States, on the same sourced basis, is fourteen point eight short of its own.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
Nigeria misses its expectation by half as much as America misses its own.
Now
Nigeria misses what its hand predicts by under a point. America misses its own by nearly fifteen.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026 · I was wrong about Nigeria (the correction film)
Said
The pictures, not the words: eighteen of the film's eighty three pictures were plainly wrong (white people, streets from another continent, faces left blank, the wrong flag), ten more were doubtful, and it drew a coat of arms with invented animals in the wrong colours.
Now
The faults are named in the correction film. The pictures were redrawn: ninety five across nine pieces, eighty four of them fixed by the place line "set in Nigeria, West Africa"; the invented coat of arms was replaced. Whether the published cut carries the redrawn pictures is not recorded in the repo.
Corrected 2 OCT 2026
Said
Two hundred and thirty million people
Now
237.5 million people in 2025 (World Bank, population total, SP.POP.TOTL).
Corrected 8 OCT 2026 · Published on this page; not yet voiced in a film
Said
Seven in ten people held in prison have not been tried.
Now
Nearly two in three are awaiting trial: 65.2 per cent of people held in Nigerian prisons, June 2026 (World Prison Brief). Seven in ten was true in 2020, at 73.8 per cent, and is out of date.
Corrected 8 OCT 2026 · Published on this page; not yet voiced in a film
Said
Its residual is plus fourteen point five. Twenty three points apart, on hands that are not so different.
Now
On the sourced figures Botswana's residual is plus 19.4, and Nigeria's is minus 0.8: about twenty points apart. The judged figures the film used have been replaced by figures computed from published data.
Corrected 8 OCT 2026 · Published on this page; not yet voiced in a film
Sources
In the order the film says them
Now the ten pillars and a hundred and two indicators.
The Country Instrument's own pillar and indicator list (ten pillars, 102 indicators, each with its named source); METHOD.md: "The instrument names 102 indicators."
Emissions per person near the bottom of the world.
World Bank, Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions excluding LULUCF per capita, EN.GHG.CO2.PC.CE.AR5: Nigeria 0.57 tonnes a head (2024), which scores 97 on the instrument's world scale
half a per cent of its land arable
World Bank, Arable land (% of land area), AG.LND.ARBL.ZS: Botswana 0.46 (2023)
The instrument names a source for each of its hundred and two indicators
The Country Instrument's indicator list, where every indicator carries a named source (for example IMF, OECD Revenue Statistics; UN Statistics Division; World Prison Brief)
Judgements, not sourced
Scored by judgement, as the film said
Two hundred and thirty million people
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
the largest population in Africa
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
with a median age of eighteen
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Nine hundred and twenty thousand square kilometres.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Five hundred languages
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
one of the highest measures of division on earth, at zero point eight five
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Oil, which pays for the state and hides what the state cannot do.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Twenty seven years of unbroken constitutional order, after twenty nine years of soldiers.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
A civil war inside living memory. Three insurgencies running at once.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Nigeria breaches seven of the nine.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Torture, documented and systemic. Deaths in custody that nobody independent investigates. Journalists imprisoned for their work. Forced labour at home. The death penalty, still in the statute and still handed down.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Two in five children never registered at birth
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Seven in ten people held in prison have not been tried.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
The incarceration rate itself is among the lowest in the world
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
In twenty fifteen a sitting president lost an election and left. That had never happened here before.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
The level comes out at twenty nine. Last in this set, and a long way last.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
State capacity, twenty six.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
The treatment of people who cannot punish the state, twenty two.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
No financial secrecy industry. No arms sold into other people's atrocities. Peacekeepers sent into two regional wars, at its own expense.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Nigeria scores fifty eight there. Switzerland scores fifty two. The United States scores forty two.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Continental scale. Two oceans. No hostile neighbour. The oldest written constitution still running, and the deepest capital market on earth.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Two of them are higher. One is the external footprint, which rose partly because the country got poorer. The other is state capacity, and that one rose because of decisions taken in the last three years.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Landlocked, half a per cent of its land arable, independent in the same decade, living off one mineral.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Its residual is plus fourteen point five.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Twenty three points apart, on hands that are not so different.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
State capacity in Nigeria scores twenty six. In Botswana it scores fifty eight.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Across the last ten years Nigeria has moved that pillar by two tenths of a point a year. At that rate the gap closes in one hundred and sixty years.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
A government that collects under a tenth of its economy in tax
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film
Measured across the last three, it moves several times faster.
The Country Instrument's judgement, scored for this film