Nigeria has ranked 55th globally on the economic performance pillar of the 2026 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, scoring 45.2 points in the category and securing the highest position among the African economies assessed, ahead of South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Botswana.
The result offers a narrow bright spot in an otherwise difficult report for Africa's largest economy. Despite leading its African peers in economic performance, Nigeria's overall competitiveness weakened, with the country ranking 68th out of 70 economies in the 2026 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, slipping one place from its 2025 position and posting an overall competitiveness score of 38.8.
South Africa, ranked 54th among the 70 economies covered by the survey, overtook Kenya this year as Africa's most competitive economy, posting an overall score of 50.16 points and climbing 10 places compared with the 2025 edition.
The gulf between Nigeria's sector-level performance and its overall standing reflects deep structural problems the IMD report did not spare. Nigeria's government efficiency ranking dropped to 53rd from 50th in 2025, business efficiency fell to 63rd from 59th, and its infrastructure ranking declined to 70th out of the 70 economies surveyed, down from 68th the previous year.
Executives in Nigeria pointed to reinforcing economic and institutional constraints, including high transportation costs, inadequate infrastructure, energy shortages, limited access to credit, and concerns about insecurity, as the primary drags on business confidence.
The IMD also cited data from Nigeria's National Productivity Centre identifying insecurity, insurgency and banditry in the agricultural belt as major obstacles to competitiveness, alongside infrastructure deficits including unreliable electricity supply and transport bottlenecks that raise the cost of doing business.
The broader 2026 ranking, which covers 70 global economies and draws on 172 statistical indicators and survey responses from senior executives, found that economies with credible institutions are better positioned to cope with an increasingly volatile and fragmented global environment. It is precisely the institutional credibility that the report says matters most that Nigeria's scores suggest it lacks.
Leading Africa in one pillar of four is a result that the government may headline. What the full report makes clear is that the remaining three pillars are moving in the wrong direction.
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