By Adedapo Adesanya
The SBM Intelligence African Country Instability Risk Report Index (ACIRI) has ranked Nigeria as a stable African country based on select macro indicators benchmarks.
The report which was published on Monday assesses the political, economic and social factors contributing to Sub-Saharan Africa’s political instability. It provides a framework for assessing the risk of coups d’état using factors such as ethnic tension, the country’s history of coups, dominant ethnic groups, economic concentration, ageing leaders and monoproduct, bi-product or multi-product economies.
The 47 Sub-Saharan sub-region of Africa’s 55 countries were ranked on four benchmarks – leadership and governance, geopolitics, economy, and history and placed in six categories: safe (below 30), stable (30-39), vulnerable (40-49), critical (50-59), warning (60-69), and red watch (70-above). The study excludes North Africa.
In Nigeria’s case, it is one of the stable countries as it scored an average of 39 points based on leadership and governance (30 per cent), geopolitics (33 per cent), economy (60 per cent), and history (27 per cent).
It however possesses certain high risks ranging from Naira depreciation, multidimensional poverty, security challenges due to internal strife and aggression in neighbouring countries like Niger and Chad, and political uncertainty.
Countries like Botswana (18 per cent), Mauritius (20 per cent), South Africa(22 per cent), Seychelles (24 per cent) and Cape Verde (25 per cent), were noted as the lowest political risk for both regime change and risk-side challenges for economic actors and entrepreneurs.
For other countries like Ghana, it came ahead of Nigeria with 31 per cent as well as Kenya and Senegal with 34 percentage points each and neighbouring Benin Republic scored 36 per cent as it faces no active conflict or succession instability with good cooperation with other West African neighbours.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (81 per cent), Central African Republic (per cent), Sudan (77 per cent), and Chad (76 per cent) present the highest risk for regime change on the continent.
Countries that have recently seen coups, including Burkina Faso (70 per cent), Gabon (60 per cent), Guinea (63 per cent) and Niger (65 per cent), also stand at the low end of the rankings.