Anambra faults Philips Consulting’s rating, citing ‘flawed methodology’

The Anambra State government has faulted the 2025 state performance index rating conducted by the Philips Consulting Limited, saying that it relied on flawed methodology, weak sampling, and biased inferences to arrive at its result.

According to the ‘2025 PCL State Performance Index’ report released by the organisation on Thursday, Anambra was rated as one of the worst states, to live, and one of the “underperforming” states, a report the state government disagreed with, insisting that the rating agency did not follow due diligence.

In a statement released on Friday, the Anambra State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Chiamaka Nnake, rejected the report, saying the PCL 2025 report produced results that are not only misleading, but risk damaging its own professional reputation.

Nnake insisted that Anambra is performing well in all sectors such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, security, saying that serious international organisations adopted rigorous, verifiable methods and ranked Anambra at the top.

She added that despite the rating by serious international agencies, PCL simultaneously ranks Anambra at the bottom, nothing that the credibility gap of the PCL’s rating becomes impossible to ignore.

The statement read in part, ‘Philips Consulting Limited, once renowned for its expertise in human resource services, now appears to have veered into areas far beyond its traditional competence. Everyone now rushes into the business of ‘ranking’ as the new fad in town.

“While it is not wrong for a firm to broaden its scope, such ventures demand rigorous training, capacity development, and methodological soundness. Without these, credibility is compromised, and reputations are put at risk.

“The 2025 PCL State Performance Index raises fundamental questions: What capacity does PCL have to rank Nigerian states? How was this research designed, and on what basis were such sweeping conclusions drawn? Increasingly, intellectuals and observers alike are asking whether PCL is not losing strategic focus and joined the crowd of spurious rating agencies.

“For context, in the 2024 edition, Anambra was ranked 8th. Even then, we were amused by the methodology and its results, and we never took it seriously. Now, in 2025, with a phantom change in methodology, the state suddenly plunged to 34th. Such dramatic swings within one year should have compelled any serious consultant to re-examine assumptions, refine data, and validate findings perhaps via field engagement, not publishing questionable outcomes.”

The Commissioner listed methodological flaws, sample data bias, over reliance on spending without outcomes and lack of ground engagement to rubbish the PCL rating.

“Methodological flaws – PCL claimed 78 respondents for Anambra State, a population of over 6 million people (adjusted 2022 census estimate). By the widely accepted Cochran’s formula, a minimum of 385 respondents is required for five per cent margin of error, while 9,593 respondents are required for one person cent margin of error. Anything less introduces serious levels of sampling error.

“Sample distribution bias – PCL admits that 76 per cent of its respondents were male. A credible survey must proportionally represent age, gender, income, and employment status, drawn from census or reliable population data. By skewing so heavily toward one gender and failing to stratify properly, the research was fundamentally compromised.

“Over reliance on spending without outcomes – The report appears to emphasise state expenditure levels without adequately measuring the efficiency or tangible outcomes of such spending. By focusing on the absolute amount spent rather than juxtaposing it with the real impact achieved, the analysis risks overlooking whether resources are being utilized effectively – Value for Money

“Lack of ground engagement – No evidence exists that PCL engaged stakeholders, visited communities, or conducted any direct validation of outcomes in Anambra. Findings were inferred without context, first-hand observation, or alignment with verifiable state-level data.

Contradictions with verifiable data – Education: Anambra is a national leader in education. Since September 2023, the state has implemented truly free education from Nursery to JSS3, extending this to SS3 in 2024 in all public schools. Enrolments rose sharply—27.05 per cent increase in primary and 10.36 per cent increase in secondary schools—bringing the state’s out-of-school rate to just 2.9 per cent (lowest out of 36 states and FCT, UNESCO).

“Additionally, over 8,115 teachers were recruited transparently and competitively and have continued to transform the Education Infrastructure. Without measuring learning outcomes and teacher/teaching quality, any educational ranking is incomplete.

“We are not aware of any other state where a government recruited 8,115 teachers within the first two years in office to end the era of schools without teachers. Over the past two years we have also been massively investing smartly in upgrading physical and technological infrastructure in the schools, and our students and teachers continue to win national and international awards. It will also be nice to know which State(s) do better in these milestones,” she added.

According to the commissioner, in 2024, the National Primary Healthcare Leadership Challenge Awards (assessed by UNICEF, Dangote Group, NGF, and the Gates Foundation, among others) ranked Anambra number one in the South-East and number one in Nigeria, awarding Anambra $1.2m in recognition.

“We understand that the rankings were done by an international team of about 15 consultants who visited every state and the FCT. This is in addition to the celebrated revolutionary policy on free antenatal and free delivery in all public hospitals which has benefited over 120,000 women in two years as well as massive investments in general hospitals, telemedicine and tertiary services.

“Anambra’s child mortality rate is second only to Lagos state, and patronage of public hospitals has moved from 25 per cent in 2022 to 73 per cent currently— a historic record, etc. This contrasts sharply with PCL’s ranking of Anambra at 30th in Health—a glaring inconsistency that underscores the superficiality of their approach.

“Infrastructure – the state has awarded 842.2 km of roads in three years (including 8 bridges and flyovers), completing 546.3 km to date, including over 150km dualization projects— earning multiple awards for transformative infrastructure delivery. Yet, PCL’s methodology manages to underplay these tangible achievements.

These are just to mention a few. By relying on flawed methodology, weak sampling, and biased inferences, the PCL 2025 report has produced results that are not only misleading but risk damaging its own professional reputation. When serious international organizations adopt rigorous, verifiable methods and rank Anambra at the top, and PCL simultaneously ranks it at the bottom, the credibility gap becomes impossible to ignore.

“If PCL seeks to expand into performance ranking, it must embrace the discipline of robust statistical methods, field engagement, and impartial analysis (You cannot sit in Lagos/Abuja and rely on what a handful of people “think” (perception) to rank states). Anything less reduces serious work to mere propaganda,” the statement concluded.