Lagos Tops 2025 Phillips Consulting States’ Performance Index As Ogun, Kaduna, Adamawa, Niger Improve

Lagos State topped the 2025 Phillips Consulting State Performance Index (pSPI), becoming the only subnational government to receive a five‑star “Exceptional” rating, while Ogun, Kaduna, Adamawa and Niger states registered improvements that placed them in the four‑star category.

The pSPI assesses Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory across a range of development and governance domains, including fiscal management, economic development, infrastructure, healthcare, education, governance, environmental sustainability and digital access.

For 2025, the index methodology assigned 70 per cent weight to objective performance indicators and 30 per cent to citizen perception scores.

Nearly 10,000 respondents participated in the perception survey component, providing data on public confidence in governance and service delivery.

Phillips Consulting’s 2025 report ranked Lagos first overall.

The report attributes Lagos’ top position to comparatively high levels of internally generated revenue, sustained infrastructure development, a concentrated private sector, and public service delivery measures that outperformed those of other subnational governments on several indicators.

The consultancy also highlighted the state’s transport and ports infrastructure and ongoing digital governance initiatives as factors reflected in the index scores.

Ogun State placed second overall in the 2025 ranking.

The report notes Ogun’s industrial base and recent policy and investment activity as contributors to its performance, while also identifying specific areas for improvement in public services and revenue mobilisation.

Kaduna, Adamawa and Niger states moved into the four‑star bracket in 2025, reflecting measurable improvements on some objective indicators and in citizen perception compared with previous editions of the index.

The report shows a wider separation between Lagos and its nearest competitors than in prior years. While Lagos has consistently featured near the top of past pSPI editions, the 2025 results indicate a larger gap in composite scores between Lagos and the second‑placed state.

Phillips Consulting’s analysis points to differences in fiscal capacity and infrastructure scale as among the drivers of this gap.

The pSPI is presented by Phillips Consulting as a benchmarking tool intended to help policymakers identify performance shortfalls and design evidence‑based reforms.

The firm combines administrative and statistical data with survey findings to produce a composite score for each state; the 2025 edition includes indicators such as internally generated revenue per capita, road and transport infrastructure metrics, access to healthcare and education outcomes, environmental management practices, and measures of digital service provision and transparency.

In its write‑up, Phillips Consulting highlights that reliance on federal allocations remains a structural challenge for many states, and that the ability to generate and deploy local resources was an important determinant of higher rankings.

The report highlighted variability across states’ fiscal sustainability, institutional capacity, and service‑delivery outcomes, and encourages targeted reforms to address identified gaps.

Analysts and observers quoted in the report described the index as useful for comparative assessment, while cautioning that rankings capture broad performance patterns rather than the full complexity of governance in each state.

They noted that citizen-perception components can reflect recent events and media coverage, as well as longer‑term changes in service delivery.

The 2025 pSPI also provides state‑by‑state breakdowns and sectoral scores intended to help subnational governments pinpoint strengths and weaknesses. For example, the report highlights specific sectors where Lagos outperformed peers—such as revenue mobilisation and digital service delivery—while indicating areas where other states posted significant gains, including industrial development in Ogun and improvements in selected social indicators in Kaduna, Adamawa and Niger.

Phillips Consulting emphasised that the index is one of several tools available to policymakers and stakeholders for monitoring progress and designing interventions.

The firm recommended that states use the findings to prioritise policy responses, strengthen data collection and improve citizen engagement to enhance the accuracy and utility of future assessments.

Overall, the 2025 pSPI positions Lagos as the highest‑scoring state in the assessment, with Ogun, Kaduna, Adamawa and Niger showing upward movement into the four‑star category. The report’s authors and independent observers underline that while the index highlights comparative performance, achieving sustained improvements will depend on policy choices, fiscal reforms and continued investment in public services and infrastructure.