THE FAITH ECONOMY: Counting What Nigeria Already Sees

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” Often attributed to Albert Einstein Yet economies have always advanced by learning to count what had previously gone unnoticed. Before sunrise, Nigeria is already at work. In one part of the country, a driver starts his engine earlier than usual […]

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Often attributed to Albert Einstein

Yet economies have always advanced by learning to count what had previously gone unnoticed.

Before sunrise, Nigeria is already at work.

In one part of the country, a driver starts his engine earlier than usual because worshippers must reach the mosque before the first call to prayer fades into the morning air. Nearby, a trader arranges prayer mats, caps, perfumes and books with the seriousness of a man preparing for a stock exchange opening.

Elsewhere, a church generator coughs reluctantly into life. A technician taps a microphone and says, “one, two,” several times, although nobody has ever explained why microphones require counting before they agree to work. Musicians rehearse. Ushers arrange chairs. Caterers unload food. Security personnel take their positions. Buses begin to move.

By mid-morning, money is moving too.

Fuel has been bought. Transport fares have been paid. Food has been cooked and sold. Mobile data is disappearing into livestreams. Hotels are receiving guests. Printers are settling invoices. Musicians, cleaners, drivers, technicians and food vendors are earning income.

Most Nigerians would simply say that people have gone to worship.

An economist, being professionally incapable of leaving a simple matter alone, sees something else.

He sees labour. He sees production. He sees consumption. He sees transport, media, hospitality, construction and retail.

He sees an economy.

The difference between the ordinary observer and the economist is not that one sees more than the other. It is that the economist asks a different question. Instead of asking what people are doing, he asks what economic activity those actions create. Sometimes, asking a different question is enough to reveal an entirely new landscape.

That economy is familiar to everybody and measured by almost nobody.

Nigeria counts the school but rarely asks what faith built around it. It counts the hospital but not always the religious network that sustains it. It counts the road journey, the hotel room, the publishing activity, the construction work and the television broadcast, but not the common force connecting them.

The country sees the parts.

It does not yet see the whole.

This paper calls that whole the Faith Economy.

Nigeria is often described as one of the world’s most religious countries. The description is repeated so often that it has almost become a national statistic, even though nobody appears to know who conducted the census of devotion.

What is beyond dispute is that faith is deeply woven into Nigerian life. It shapes identity, family relationships, charitable behaviour, education, healthcare, ceremonies and public morality. Religious institutions are among the country’s most enduring organisations. Some operate schools, universities, hospitals, clinics, farms, media houses and humanitarian programmes. Others have grown into communities with roads, markets, banks and transport systems.

At that point, one must ask politely whether one is still looking at a place of worship or at a small municipality with a choir.

Major religious gatherings transform local economies. Hotels fill up. Transport operators become busier. Traders increase stock. Food vendors expand production. Mobile networks carry millions of calls and livestreams. During pilgrimage seasons, airlines, travel agencies, caterers and hotels all experience increased demand. Faith based charities pay school fees, settle hospital bills, support vulnerable families and distribute relief materials.

All of this is visible.

What is not visible is its combined economic significance.

Nigeria recognises the oil economy, the digital economy, the creative economy and the blue economy. Yet it has never attempted to recognise the economy created around faith.

The problem is not that the activity is absent.

The problem is that it is scattered across different statistical boxes.

A faith based university appears under education. A mission hospital appears under health. A church owned television station appears under broadcasting. A mosque under construction appears under construction. Pilgrimage expenditure appears under transport, aviation and hospitality.

Everything is counted separately.

Nothing is assembled.

The Faith Economy may therefore be less a hidden economy than an unassembled economy.

Its activities are already taking place. Many are already recorded. What is missing is the analytical framework that brings them together and asks what they collectively contribute to output, employment, investment and social welfare.

Has Anyone Counted the Faith Economy?

At this point, a reasonable reader may ask an obvious question.

If the Faith Economy is so visible, why has nobody measured it?

The answer is that many have measured parts of it, but almost nobody has measured the whole.

Researchers in the United States have estimated the broad economic footprint of religion by examining the schools, hospitals, charities, businesses and employment associated with faith communities. Australia recognises religious organisations within its Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account, demonstrating that faith related economic activity can be measured without reducing religion to commerce. In the United Kingdom, studies have focused on the social value created by churches through volunteering, heritage and community service. Meanwhile, the Global Islamic Economy has developed sophisticated measures of halal industries, Islamic finance and faith inspired consumer markets.

Each of these approaches captures an important piece of the puzzle.

None assembles the entire ecosystem.

That is the opportunity before Nigeria.

Rather than copying any one model, Nigeria can learn from each while developing an approach that reflects its own religious diversity, institutional landscape and economic realities. With one of the world’s largest faith communities and an extraordinary network of faith based education, healthcare and philanthropy, Nigeria is well placed to help define this emerging field.

Every generation of economists inherits concepts from those before it. Occasionally, however, progress comes from naming something that has always existed but has never been properly seen. The informal economy, the digital economy and the creative economy all began as conceptual frameworks before they became recognised areas of economic policy. The Faith Economy may represent the next step in that intellectual journey.

This does not mean that religion should be treated as a business.

A place of worship is first a spiritual institution. Prayer does not become more effective because it has been classified under services, and no national accountant should attempt to value salvation at market prices.

But spiritual purpose does not eliminate economic consequence.

A hospital exists to heal but still employs people and purchases equipment. A university exists to educate but also shapes housing, transport and local commerce. In the same way, religious institutions generate measurable economic activity while pursuing fundamentally spiritual objectives.

The Faith Economy therefore concerns the workers employed, buildings constructed, journeys made, services delivered, businesses supported and communities sustained through the organisation and practice of faith. It seeks to measure economic value without pretending to measure spiritual value.

Walk through almost any large religious institution in Nigeria and you encounter an entire labour market in miniature. There are clergy and teachers, certainly, but also doctors, accountants, architects, engineers, musicians, broadcasters, technicians, drivers, cleaners, lawyers, security personnel and construction workers. Some receive monthly salaries, others seasonal income, while countless volunteers contribute something economists struggle to price their time.

Faith also shapes geography. A place of worship attracts people. People attract commerce. Commerce attracts housing, transport, banks and communications. What begins as a religious centre often becomes an economic centre.

The same pattern extends into household finances. Millions of Nigerians spend money on transport to worship, religious giving, festivals, pilgrimages, education and charity. Such spending may strengthen communities and support important institutions. It may also compete with other household priorities. Neither possibility should be assumed. Both should be studied.

The Faith Economy also produces multiplier effects. Money spent on a convention pays printers, transporters, caterers and artisans, who in turn support other businesses and households. Yet not all multipliers are equal. Some generate temporary consumption. Others leave behind schools, hospitals, infrastructure, skills and institutions that strengthen future productivity. A serious analysis must distinguish between the two.

Equally important is the distinction between economic production and social contribution.

Faith institutions create trust, mobilise volunteers, support vulnerable households and strengthen community resilience. These are real contributions even when they do not appear in GDP. At the same time, economic measurement requires discipline. A tithe or offering is not automatically GDP simply because money changes hands. It contributes to economic output only when it finances labour, purchases goods, delivers services or creates productive assets.

The objective is not to produce the largest possible estimate.

It is to produce the most credible one.

That will require careful distinctions between transfers and production, paid work and volunteer service, current expenditure and investment, domestic value creation and imported inputs.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that Nigeria has spent decades searching for new engines of growth while one of its largest economic ecosystems has been operating in plain sight every week.

Sometimes the most important discoveries are not new discoveries at all.

They are simply new ways of seeing familiar things.

The value of the Faith Economy lies not in giving Nigeria another slogan. It lies in offering a different way of understanding an important part of the nation’s economic life.

The Faith Economy is not a new economy waiting to be created.

It is an existing economy waiting to be recognised.

The first responsibility is not to announce how large it is.

The first responsibility is simply to acknowledge that it exists as a coherent economic ecosystem worthy of careful study.

Nigeria sees the worship.

It sees the traffic.

It sees the schools, hospitals, pilgrims, traders, workers and volunteers.

It has always seen the activity.

What it has not yet seen is the economy that connects it all.

Perhaps it is time to count what Nigeria has been seeing all along.

Suleyman A. Ndanusa, PhD, OON, is an economist, lawyer, strategic studies scholar, and public policy thinker and practitioner with extensive experience in financial markets, regulation, governance, national Security and development.