Phillips Consulting Performance Index: Learnings from the Edo State Decline

Crusoe Osagie reflects on the findings of the 2026 Phillips Consulting States Performance Index and distils possible learning points from Edo State’s abysmal performance

The 2026 Phillips Consulting State Performance Index (pSPI), released this week, placed Enugu State at the top of the 33 states assessed as the most improved relative to the national average, while identifying Edo State as the least improved.

While it will be difficult to cut through the political noise that this report is most likely to generate, it is essential to put this very important survey into proper perspective and draw the necessary lessons from its findings.

The 2026 pSPI is more than another state ranking. Built on 37 performance indicators across seven pillars—security, education, health, basic infrastructure, governance, economic development, and fiscal performance—it combines 70 percent objective data with 30 percent citizen perception. More significantly, this year’s edition introduces a Momentum Index that measures whether states are moving forward or backward relative to the national average. It is, therefore, not merely a snapshot of where states are today but a measure of the direction in which they are travelling. That distinction is critical.

Before extracting the insights that Edo’s precarious position in the ranking provides, it is important to take note of Lagos’ position of decline on the list and attempt to make sense of it.

How can Lagos, with its extensive infrastructure projects and undeniable physical transformation, be ranked 19th out of the 33 states assessed, recording a shocking pSPI Momentum Index of -0.08, indicating a backward trajectory? Some may ask. The answer is eloquently expressed in an article published by THISDAY newspaper on March 16, 2026, titled “The Lagos Irony,” which acknowledged the state’s visible infrastructure transformation but observed that it exists amid palpable human chaos. Physical infrastructure alone does not automatically translate into improved governance outcomes or enhanced quality of life.

As for Edo State, there is no ambiguity as to why it sits precariously at the bottom of the table. Any objective observer of trends in Nigeria’s political economy can readily relate to the massive retrogression that has afflicted Edo in less than 24 months.

Reducing this very important research, executed by no less an organisation than Phillips Consulting, to a mere tool for political name-calling or partisan bragging rights would be a grave disservice to the painstaking effort behind the report. Rather, the facts behind these numbers must be exposed, examined, debated, and understood so they can serve as lessons for states that performed well to sustain their momentum while providing those in decline with the opportunity to reverse course.

The various states that performed below expectations in the pSPI report have different reasons for falling short. Some struggle with limited institutional capacity, weak fiscal management, poor infrastructure, or governance deficiencies. However, few, if any, can be said to have deliberately deployed a wrecking ball against the very foundations of what could have become one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing subnational economies in the manner Edo State has done over the last 20 months.

Prior to the ascendancy of the current administration in Edo State, significant institutional transformation had resulted in tangible human capacity development outcomes, exemplified by a now globally renowned education transformation initiative called the Edo State Basic Education Transformation (EDOBEST) initiative that significantly boosted learning outcomes for over half a million students.

There was also a significant transformation of the civil and public service, leading to markedly enhanced public service delivery through a transparent and digitised procurement process and a paperless civil service that ensured transparent and efficient monitoring and guidance of economic growth, championed by an unshackled private sector.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of policy decisions taken by the current administration in Edo State reflect what appears to be a willful and unconscionable dismantling of the state’s economic architecture and the systematic impoverishment of its people.

How does one explain a government that inherited a functioning state—by whatever political means—but failed to recognise that every productive asset on the state’s balance sheet represented an advantage to be preserved and improved? Was it anger? Was it pride? Was it envy? It remains difficult to identify any rational explanation for why a government would appear determined to take a sledgehammer to its own socio-economic assets.

The Independent Power Project, Ossiomo Power, which the Edo State Government facilitated through an entirely private-sector investment, was among the first casualties. The 95-megawatt power plant supplied electricity to virtually all state government institutions and a significant number of private businesses in Benin City. Yet it became the target of sustained official hostility, resulting in the crippling of one of the state’s most strategic infrastructure investments and plunging large sections of the state back into darkness, with the inevitable consequences of declining productivity, reduced investor confidence, and increased operating costs for businesses.

Next came an episode of international embarrassment when, in an apparent bid to hijack a museum project privately owned by the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) Trust—with significant international support, partnerships, and credibility—the facility was invaded by thugs allegedly sponsored by the state government. The resulting dispute has kept the institution, which The New York Times listed among its 52 Places to Go in 2025, under lock and key for well over a year, undermining investor confidence in one of Nigeria’s most ambitious cultural and creative economy initiatives.

There is also the over 90 percent completed 150-room, five-star Radisson Hotel project, facilitated by the previous administration with majority equity held by private investors. Rather than ensuring the completion and commissioning of a project capable of transforming Edo’s hospitality and tourism sectors, creating thousands of jobs, and generating significant internally generated revenue, the government has frustrated its take-off despite its enormous economic potential.

It is essential to note that the aforementioned MOWAA, Radisson, and millions of dollars in private-sector investment attracted to the agricultural sector by the immediate past administration in Edo State, which were savagely attacked by the current government, were the outcome of an integrated strategy to diversify the Edo economy away from the dangerous dependence on federal allocation by leveraging the state’s unique comparative advantage in its ancient and unmatched arts and culture, as well as its extensive and fertile agricultural land.

There has also been the extrajudicial demolition of private property across the state; the disruption of the land administration system established by the previous government, which enabled citizens to obtain secure legal title to land within two months at reasonable cost; and attempts to dismantle the investor-friendly framework painstakingly built over several years. While the government was busy dismantling the land administration system, it also attempted to assume control over Presco Plc’s operations by revoking the Certificate of Occupancy covering the land on which the company’s plantations and processing facilities are situated—an action that sent troubling signals to both local and international investors about the security of investments in Edo State.

Equally disturbing has been the collapse of the integrated security management system established by the previous administration, including the world-class Security Fusion Centre, with its sophisticated surveillance infrastructure and intelligence-driven crime prevention architecture. At a time when insecurity continues to threaten economic growth across Nigeria, dismantling an operational security ecosystem represents not merely administrative negligence but a serious setback to public safety and economic confidence.

The significance of the Phillips Consulting report lies precisely in its attempt to measure outcomes rather than political rhetoric. Its methodology recognises that sustainable development is built on functioning institutions, responsible governance, economic competitiveness, quality infrastructure, human capital, fiscal discipline, and citizens’ lived experiences—not on political propaganda or media optics.

Unlike many states whose poor showing in the pSPI may be attributed to weak capacity, inadequate resources, or administrative shortcomings, Edo’s descent appears fundamentally rooted in a political process that many citizens believe denied them the opportunity to freely choose their leaders. It remains the conviction of a significant number of Edo people that the current governor was not the candidate who received the genuine mandate of the electorate. They believe that, had the will of the people prevailed, the state would today be under the leadership of seasoned corporate lawyer and respected private-sector leader, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, and that Edo’s trajectory on the pSPI would almost certainly have been markedly different.

Perhaps the most important lesson from the 2026 Phillips Consulting State Performance Index is that governance has consequences, and those consequences eventually become measurable. Progress can be painstakingly built over many years and dismantled in a remarkably short period through poor leadership, policy inconsistency, institutional destruction, and political vindictiveness.

The warning contained in the report extends far beyond Edo State. Today’s leaders in the pSPI—such as Enugu and Abia—must resist the temptation to regard their present rankings as permanent achievements. They are merely evidence of current momentum. If Nigeria’s increasingly reckless political culture, characterised by deeply disputed electoral outcomes, the subversion of the popular mandate, and the emergence of governments that devote more energy to dismantling inherited institutions than to building on them, becomes the norm, it will only be a matter of time before even today’s top-performing states experience significant reversals in fortune. Sustainable development cannot thrive where democratic legitimacy is persistently undermined, institutions are sacrificed on the altar of politics, and governance becomes an instrument of vengeance rather than progress.