NIGERIA has been ranked the 118th happiest country in the world in the latest World Happiness Index report.
The annual World Happiness Report, now its 10th edition, ranked Finland as the country with the happiest people in the world for the fifth consecutive year.
The latest ranking, World Happiness Report 2022, placed Nigeria below 20 other African countries, with Mauritius ranking number one in the continent at 52 on the log.
Libya, the second happiest country in Africa, ranked 86th in the world.
Other countries ranked among the top 20 in Africa include South Africa (91), Gambia (93) Algeria (96), Liberia (97), Congo (99), Morocco (100), Mozambique (101) and Cameroon (102).
War-ravaged Afghanistan is at the bottom of the table. The country has had its humanitarian crisis deepen since the Taliban took over power last year.
Other countries at the foot of the table include Lebanon (145), Zimbabwe (144), Rwanda (143), Botswana (142) and Lesotho (141).
The ranking is based on peoples’ assessment of their happiness, as well as economic and social data, often done by Gallup World Poll.
The report also put into consideration factors such as healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support in times of trouble, low corruption and high social trust, generosity in a community where people look after each other and freedom to make key life decisions.
“Although the World Happiness Reports are based on a wide variety of data, the most important source has always been the Gallup World Poll, which is unique in the range and comparability of its global series of annual surveys.
“The life evaluations from the Gallup World Poll provide the basis for the annual happiness rankings that have always sparked widespread interest,” parts of the report said.
The authors of the report said COVID-19 have made Gallup go the extra mile in gathering data for this year’s report.
“COVID-19 has posed unique problems for data collection, and the team at Gallup has been extremely helpful in building the largest possible sample of data in time for inclusion in this report. They have gone the extra mile, and we thank them for it.”
'Niyi worked with The ICIR as an Investigative Reporter and Fact-checker from 2020 till September 2022. You can shoot him an email via [email protected]. You can as well follow him on Twitter via @niyi_oyedeji.