Which Nigerians Drink the Most? – Alcohol as a Driver of the Economy | Scientia (2024)

“Humankind was built on beer. From the world’s first writing to its first laws, in rituals social, religious, and political, civilisation is soaked in beer.”

-William Bostwick

Alcohol consumption is as old as records go. For centuries, brewers were part of the fabric upon which local communities were built. A big part of experiencing a new culture to this day is trying out local beer. Many economies worldwide are also hinged upon this, e.g., the countries involved in the international trade of barley and hops. Beyond its positive economic impact, alcohol making and drinking is a highly productive activity that employs millions globally, increasing employment rates. Alcohol supports jobs and GDP both upstream, i.e., businesses in or associated with the alcohol supply chain, and downstream, i.e., distributors, retailers, and hospitality firms that get beer into final consumers’ hands. It is critical for certain lower-income countries that depend on it for income balance—producing and consuming beer impacts all parts of the economy. The beer sector contributed $555B to the global GDP in 2019. Brewing accounted for 45% ($250.7B) of this, while the downstream value chain contributed 55% ($304.6B). It created 7.6 direct million jobs, 23.1 million jobs (1 in every 110) in total and managed to remit $262B in taxes, all in one year.

Figure I Beer Impact Broken down by Causes | Source: Oxford Economics

Direct Impact: Economic activity created by manufacturers and distributors at their operational sites.
Indirect Impact: Economic activity supported in the supply chain by purchasing from suppliers.
Induced Impact: Economic activity supported by paying staff wages across the value chain.

An Oxford Economics report on 70 countries released in March 2022 ranked Nigeria 30th in global alcohol sales. Despite extreme inflation and a constantly-rising cost of living, Nigerians do not hold back on the things they love. According to the Worldwide Brewing Alliance, beer alone contributed $2.2 billion to the Nigerian economy in 2019. Compiling reports to the Nigerian Exchange by the four major breweries, Nigerians spent over N542B on alcoholic drinks in the first half of 2022; combined with the N57B spent on soft drinks, this is 31.2% more than last year.

Table 1 H1 2022 revenue for listed brewers | Source: Nigerian Exchange

By expanding the data to previous years (excluding 2020 and 2021 for COVID reasons), we see just how big an impact alcohol has on the nation.

Table 2 Economic Impact of Beer on Nigeria between 2015 and 2019 | Source: Oxford Economics

In 2016, the beer sector employed 486,000 people in Nigeria, accounting for 1 out of every 50 jobs. 309,000 in 2019 was comparatively 0.4% of national employment, representing a 1.6% drop in impact. While this is still a significant figure (For context, 309K jobs was 81% of employment in Aba, one of Nigeria’s most commercially vibrant cities), it emphasises the beer’s declining contribution to the Nigerian economy. The decline can also be seen in GDP, where between 2016 and 2019, gross value-added contribution to GDP dropped from 0.7% to 0.6%. The reverse is the case for tax, where the lesser figure of $526M in 2019 contributed 1.7% of government revenue (including excise and VAT) in that year compared to 2016, where $800M could only account for 0.3%. This anomaly is a testament to Nigeria’s increasingly disturbing falling-revenue problem, which awkwardly enough is not limited to the more popular decline in oil production rhetoric, but that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, we go back to Nigerians and drinking.

Which Nigerians Drink the Most? Leading Regions

Time and again, a famous debate on social media and other channels is “which tribe or state drinks the most?” To answer this, we refer to the Multiple Cluster Survey Report released in 2018 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In conjunction with UNICEF and the World Bank, the report crowns Enugu as the leading state for men drinking, with over 78% reported to have had at least one alcoholic drink in the past month. For women, Bayelsa State leads the way. By region, the South-South leads the way for women and the South East for men.

Table 3 Leading Regions and States for the Use of Alcohol (Women) | Source: NBS

Table 4 Leading Regions and States for the Use of Alcohol (Men) | Source: NBS

Some other interesting patterns to note from the report may include,

• The more educated and wealthier a Nigerian is, the more likely they are to drink.
• Urban residents are more notorious for the habit than those in rural areas.
• The leading ethnicity for people who drink is Igbo, with Hausa being the least likely.
• Northern regions and states are far behind in numbers, most likely due to religious/cultural proclivities and the upholding of Shariah tenets.
• The prime drinking age range is between 40 – 49.
• Nigerian women are 14% less likely than men to drink.
• Enugu and Abia states are notorious for underage drinking, reporting high percentages of teenagers involved in the act.

The alcohol industry aligns with several other sectors. For example, beer production and consumption in Nigeria induces many different industries. Despite concerns over drops in its contribution to GDP, taxes and job creation, alcohol consumption is not going anywhere. These dwindling figures are symbolic of broader economic issues and have nothing to do with alcohol itself. And beyond the economy, drinking is part of many Nigerian cultures and a way to bond, socialise and share experiences that define us as a nation.