The four scenarios in Navigate were constructed by stress-testing two axes: the role and stability of the state — whether it is formidable or weak — and whether the state delivers on key services. As the book notes, economic growth and a good standard of living are not transitive: one does not necessarily lead to the other. The ability of the state to deliver — and the manner in which it delivers — is the uncertain axis. Their intersection produces four internally consistent national futures with distinct observable indicators.
Event Selection: Fixed Count and PESTEL Balance
Each quarter, exactly 50 PESTEL events are assessed — no more, no less. The fixed count is a deliberate methodological choice: it eliminates selection bias from varying event volumes, makes quarters directly comparable, and prevents dramatic events from inflating any single period's score. The 50 events are structured to achieve minimum coverage across all six PESTEL domains:
Political (min. 8)
Economic (min. 10)
Social (min. 8)
Technological (min. 4)
Environmental (min. 4)
Legal (min. 6)
Events exceeding minimum coverage in one domain do not substitute for another. If a quarter produces fewer than 4 significant Technological events, the remaining slots are filled from the next most evidence-rich domain — but the domain coverage is logged and noted.
Source Balance and Anti-Bias Rules
To prevent any single source type from dominating the evidence base, the following rules apply to each quarter's 50 events:
Maximum 40% from any single source category. The four source categories are: (1) Nigerian government and official statistics (NBS, CBN, NNPCL, judiciary records); (2) Nigerian civil society and media (established Nigerian publications, CSOs, legal bodies); (3) International media (Reuters, AFP, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNBC); (4) International institutions and research (World Bank, IMF, HRW, Amnesty International, ACLED, ICG, Freedom House, Transparency International). In practice this means no quarter can be more than 20 events from any single category — preventing both "government-only" and "NGO-only" evidence bases.
Events are selected before scenario scoring. Event selection (what happened) is separated from scenario scoring (what it means) to prevent confirmation bias. An event is selected based on its significance and its PESTEL domain coverage — not on which scenario it supports. This is why all four scenarios consistently receive evidence, including The Buffet, even in quarters dominated by negative signals.
All four scenarios must receive evidence each quarter. If The Buffet receives fewer than 3 events in a quarter's evidence pool, the selection process requires identifying additional events that match its indicator set (private sector service delivery, civil society functioning, institutional checks, market innovation, judicial independence) before finalising the event list. This prevents systematic bias against any scenario — including the most aspirational one.
Scoring Logic and Comparability
Each of the 50 events is scored against the scenario indicators defined in Navigate (2018). Events can score for multiple scenarios simultaneously (e.g., a CBN rate hike may be a Full Course signal for state authority assertion and a partial Buffet signal for institutional independence). Scores are aggregated as percentage shares of cumulative evidence weight — they do not sum to 100% because one event can contribute to multiple scenarios.
Signal scores are directly comparable quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year because: (a) the event count is fixed at 50; (b) the PESTEL domain minimums are held constant; (c) the source balance rules are consistent; and (d) the scoring rubric references the same scenario indicator set from the book. Annual scores are derived from averaging the four quarterly assessments.
Assessment is supported by large language model (LLM) analysis with human editorial review. LLM-assisted analysis enables systematic coverage across all six PESTEL domains in each quarter, applying consistent scoring criteria rather than subjective editorial selection. Human review validates event significance, source credibility, and scoring rationale before publication.
