AWKA/Nigeria: The Anambra State Government has strongly rejected the 2025 State Performance Index (PSPI) released by Philips Consulting Limited (PCL), describing the ranking as “deeply flawed and misleading” after the state was downgraded from 8th position in 2024 to 34th in 2025.
Reacting in a statement on Friday in Awka, the Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mrs. Chiamaka Nnake, accused PCL of deploying what she termed an unscientific methodology. According to her, a sample size of just 78 respondents could not represent a state of over six million people, while the fact that 76 percent of respondents were male made the outcome unbalanced and unreliable.
“By accepted statistical standards, the sample size is invalid. Worse still, 76 percent of respondents were male, making the data unrepresentative,” Nnake stated.
The Commissioner faulted the report’s heavy reliance on perception and spending patterns rather than verifiable outcomes. She insisted that the ranking overlooked landmark achievements recorded by the state, including the introduction of free education from nursery to SS3, recruitment of over 8,100 teachers, and a 27 percent increase in primary school enrollment.
She also pointed to Anambra’s number one rating in a 2024 UNICEF-led health challenge, where more than 120,000 women benefitted from free maternal care. In infrastructure, she said, the state had completed 546 km of roads, multiple flyovers, and bridges within three years.
“It is unfortunate that despite these achievements, PCL ranked Anambra 30th in Health and failed to reflect significant development metrics,” Nnake lamented.
She called on PCL to review its process by embracing more rigorous methods, including field engagement, representative sampling, and outcome-based measurements, warning that credibility in performance assessment cannot be built on shallow perception surveys.
“You cannot sit in Lagos or Abuja and rank states based on the opinions of a few people. This reduces serious work to propaganda,” she added.
