By 2025 World Happiness Report
Nigeria ranked 7th friendliest country to strangers
Summary
- Nigeria placed 7th globally for friendliness to strangers in the 2025 World Happiness Report
- The report highlights strong prosocial behavior despite low trust in institutions
- Nigeria ranked 105th overall in happiness, with challenges in life satisfaction and economic stability
Abuja, Nigeria — Nigeria has been ranked the 7th friendliest country to strangers in the world, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report published by the United Nations, based on prosocial behaviors such as helping strangers, volunteering, and charitable giving, paints a picture of a deeply generous society rooted in community values.
The report, compiled by Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre in collaboration with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, assessed 147 countries through a combination of self-reported well-being and social support indicators.
Nigeria’s strong showing in the kindness-to-strangers metric underscores a culture of hospitality and interpersonal generosity, even amid persistent economic and institutional challenges.
Despite this, Nigeria ranked 105th overall in happiness. This lower placement reflects enduring issues such as economic instability, low life satisfaction, and weak trust in public institutions. In this regard, the report notes a significant “trust gap”: while Nigerians ranked 33rd in likelihood to trust a stranger to return a lost wallet, they fell to 126th when the same wallet was hypothetically found by the police.
In charitable giving, Nigeria placed 45th globally, reinforcing the country’s emphasis on person-to-person support systems rather than institutional reliance. Here, the report observed similar trends in countries like Jamaica, Liberia, and Kenya, where weaker state institutions have led communities to depend on informal social networks for security and support.
The findings highlight a paradox in Nigeria’s social fabric: a nation rich in interpersonal kindness and community spirit, yet grappling with systemic issues that limit broader societal well-being.
