Nigeria is 62 years old today, celebrating its anniversary of independence from being a British Colony. Who’s Nigeria’s best leader since independence in 1960? The country has so far been ruled and governed by 12 heads of state, with an average of five years in office per leader. But only eight of these leaders were in power for more than two years. If you’re up-to-date with Nigeria’s leadership history, which of the leaders do you think was the best? How is this measured? I answer these questions simply using two economic variables: the price of oil and growth in the gross domestic product (GDP). Rising oil prices represent the inflow of resources, an opportunity being presented for a leader to finance economic progress – to lay the foundation of unprecedented prosperity. On the other hand, growth in GDP reflects what the leader did with the opportunity, an outcome of what the oil fortune was used for. That said, let us plough through the numbers as we shovel out some stylised f