Nigeria is third happiest country in Africa, 85th in the world

Nigeria has moved up six places in the World Happiness Report ranking 85th in the world and third in Africa.

In the 2018 report, Nigeria ranked fifth in Africa and 91st in the world but the country rank only Mauritius and Libya on the continent despite widespread fear that the 2019 elections will lead to unrest in the country.

The report released on Wednesday by the Happiness Research Institute, an independent think tank exploring why some people and societies are happier than others revealed that Finland is the happiest country in the world.

Finland has now been crowned the happiest country in the world for the second year in a row, leading a top ten that is made up of five Nordic nations.

The World Happiness Report ranked 156 countries by happiness levels, based on factors such as life expectancy, social support and corruption.

But while the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland topped the table, there was no sign of Britain in the top ten.

The UK placed 15th, up from 19th last year, one above Ireland and four above the US – which came in at its lowest ranking ever at 19th. 

But Britain still trailed behind the likes of Israel, Austria, Costa Rica, Australia, Luxembourg, Canada and New Zealand. 

The North African nation of South Sudan was at the bottom of the happiness index which found America was getting less happy each year even as the country became richer – falling from 14th place in two years.

It is the second year the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network evaluated 117 countries by the happiness and well-being of their immigrants as part of the annual report.

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Europe’s Nordic nations, none particularly diverse, have dominated the index since it first was produced in 2012.  

Finland took the top spot with a score of 7.769 out of ten, beating second-placed Denmark which scored 7.6.

Filling out the top five was Norway in third, with 7.554 and Iceland fourth, scoring 7.494, narrowly ranking above fifth-placed Netherlands with 7.488. 

Propping up the table was South Sudan, with a score of just 2.853. The bottom ten also included Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Rwanda, Yemen, Malawi, Syria, Botswana, Haiti and Zimbabwe.   

Meanwhile Russia was 68th – down from 59th – France 24th and China 93rd.

Meik Wiking, CEO of the Copenhagen-based Happiness Research Institute, said the five Nordic countries that reliably rank high in the index ‘are doing something right in terms of creating good conditions for good lives,’ something newcomers have noticed.

He said the happiness revealed in the survey derives from healthy amounts of both personal freedom and social security that outweigh residents having to pay ‘some of the highest taxes in the world.’

“Briefly put, (Nordic countries) are good at converting wealth into well-being,’ Wiking said. The finding on the happiness of immigrants ‘shows the conditions that we live under matter greatly to our quality of life, that happiness is not only a matter of choice.”

Four different countries have held top ten spots in the five most recent reports- Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland.

All the top countries tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.