Nigeria is invoked as a counterexample to explanations of prosperity based on English culture. Though it was an English colony, its economic experience differs greatly from that of Canada and the United States, illustrating the book’s argument that shared colonial heritage cannot by itself account for divergent development.

Nigeria in the Comparison of Former Colonies

The book sets Nigeria alongside Sierra Leone as a former English colony whose economic record contrasts with that of the prosperous United States and Canada. The comparison is designed to test the claim that English culture or institutional inheritance explains North American success: if that legacy were decisive, former colonies would be expected to share a more consistent trajectory. Instead, their prosperity varies as widely as it does across the world as a whole.

Culture and Institutional Explanation

Nigeria’s brief appearance forms part of a wider rejection of cultural explanations of economic outcomes. The argument first questions whether religious or national cultures can explain the differences between prosperous and poor societies, then considers English heritage and European ancestry as alternatives. Nigeria helps expose the limits of the English-legacy hypothesis: colonial origin alone does not establish a common economic path. The book directs attention instead to historical events and the political and economic institutions through which societies organize power and opportunity.