NIGERIA'S INDUSTRIAL POLICIES AND THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBALI.pdf

The fundamental issue addressed in this paper is the extent to which Nigeria has restructured her industrial and trade systems for effective industrialisation within the on-going trade globalisation process.Basically, the study employs historical analysis of trade and industrial systems in Nigeria. Findings from the study reveal that the Nigerian economy has not changed its export and import structure over the 1970 -2002 period. The only changes that have taken place to its export was just a mere shift in exported product indicating a sign of export substitution from primary agro industry-based exports to primary mining industry-based exports(i.e crude oil).The results also suggest that the structure of imports has not changed significantly over the period 1970 -2002 despite series of strategies and policies put in place by the government. While the reforms favoured domestic resource-based industries, it produced an inverse impact on import intensive, low value-added units. In fact, over 70 per cent of the total imports were still manufactured goods, most of which consisted of industrial raw materials, spare parts, machinery and equipments and capital goods. Generally, enough incentives for efficient resource allocation in order to promote manufactured exports within the on-going process of globalisation coupled with economic liberalisation and deregulation paradigms have not been created. It was proposed that a mixture of the invisible hand of the market with the visible hand of the state should guide the process of industrialisation, economic diversification, trade and development similar to the case of the East Asian Tigers.

International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review, 2015

This study intends to unravel the copious challenges which hampered industrial growth in Africa and in deed Nigeria as a nation. Nigeria for instance, after independence in 1960, the main stay of her economy was Agriculture with little elements of textile and agro-allied industries until around late 1970's, these industries came to a state of comatose. One of the reasons for the distortion in the industrial development was the production of oil in commercial quantity. By implication, the discovery of oil made most African states like Nigeria to settle for an economy which relies mainly on primary mode of production instead of developing the hitherto existing local craftsmanship into modern industries. Also most consumers in Africa prefer foreign products to locally made goods due to inferiority complex. In the long-run most infant industries producing locally made products folded up due to inability to favorably compete with the western technologies. After a thorough review of relevant literature, the study adopted the dependency approach as theoretical framework that guides the paper. The main objective of the paper is to investigate in to the multiple problems that have accounted to the decline in the sector that led to industrial crisis. In an attempt to achieve the objective of this study, content analysis was used to articulate the views of notable scholars who have meaningful contributions on the subject matter. As to methodology, the paper made use of secondary data which include; pamphlets, magazines, books, journals, bulletins, newspapers, government publications and internet services. The study revealed that, the major challenge confronting industrial growth in most African countries and Nigeria in particular is lack of political will and focused leadership to break away from mono-cultural economy i.e. oil, with out diversification to allow industrial growth and development to flourish. Other setback include the followings; lack of access to micro credit facilities, epileptic power supply, weak market structure, general lack of trained manpower-technical know-how and security challenges. The attendant effects are that, there is no wealth creation, lack of job opportunities and high level of unemployment. Although in principles, Nigeria is regarded as the giant of Africa but in practice she is a consumer nation without potent industrial growth and development. One major recommendation in the study is that skill acquisition and rejuvenation of technical education by institutions of higher learning and technical colleges as well as diversification of the economy to entrenched in it industrial base and development is seriously advocated.

The paper examines the impact of globalization on industrialization in developing countries with particular reference to Nigeria. We considered the effect of economic liberalization on indigenous and modern industries in Nigeria; and x-rayed the impact of globalization on government industrial policies. The study acknowledged that, factors such as physical infrastructure, corruption, finance, policies inconsistency among others militate against industrial development in Nigeria but argued that globalization do even more. We posit that globalization made Nigeria a huge market for finished goods from developed economies and conditioned the country's economy in to consuming one. We recommended among others the adoption of a radical industrial policy that would revolutionize indigenous and modern industries in Nigeria and nurture them to a level where they can favorably compete with transnational corporations operating within the country and elsewhere in Africa. We argue that except this radical step is taken, Nigeria would continually be neo-colonized and conditioned by advanced economies/ nations.

The quest for Nigeria to be an industrialised economy with high sustainable growth rates has been the preoccupation of every administration that has piloted the affairs of the nation since after independence. But amidst of these struggles for sustainable growth the Nigerian economy has performed poorly since the late 1970s, resulting in stagnation and increasing poverty levels. Industrialisation was seen as the only feasible means to get to the Promised Land by breaking the shackles of poverty because of the expected spill over effect in every other aspect of the economy. Despite all efforts, since October 1960, the level of industrialization remains very low even with the oil boom that comes intermittently. Thus all three factors (time preference, portfolio choice, and expectations) interacted to produce an economically irrational reaction to the oil-boom in Nigeria. The structural adjustment (SAP) era was seen as a perfect time to consolidate the industrial aspirations but the Nigerian experience with SAP policies in the area of trade and industrial policies illustrates the interplay of several factors in the determination of policy design and implementation. In one sense, there is the loss of policy autonomy since the IMF and donors could almost retain a veto power on policy choices. In practice, Nigerian policy-makers have had tremendous room to manoeuvre. The situation have been off and on till the 4 th republic (1999-2007) yet Nigeria's manufacturing sub sector contribution to GDP instead of growing dropped to less than 3 percent in 2006. The paper reviewed all the policies and incentives and proffer guidelines for the way forward.

May, 2021

The high rate of economic growth, the provision of basic facilities, and job creation are products of any nation's level of industrialisation. Globally, no nation is considered to have attained a concerted level of a high standard of living in the absence of economic development. Thus, industrialisation that ought to be the bedrock of Nigerian economy has continued on a downward journey in the 21st century, despite several industrial development policies. Therefore, the paper is an attempt to find out how this sector has fared visa -vis the structural influence of UNIDO. The study is a qualitative work that adopted a thematic analysis approach. The adoption of Top-Down as a theoretical model of analyses validates the fundamental issues raised that; several industrial development programmes and projects initiated by both UNIDO and successive administrations in Nigeria to help in the revitalisation of industrial landscape in line with the government's goal of emerging among the top 20 most developed economies in the world by 2020 have failed. The major informed findings of the paper are that for the time being, Nigeria still remains a consuming economy of finished products including some raw materials. In addition, her critical construction, engineering and maintenance activities are expatriates-based with little or no regard for local content. These cumulatively resulted in the advancement of the fact that the UNIDO supports have not significantly impacted the development of industries in Nigeria. The discourse conclusively gave birth to subsequent recommendations.

Sustainable Development and Planning V, 2011

Perhaps one major problem facing Nigeria today that has received little or no attention remains her low industrial base. Indeed, apart from South Africa and Egypt, both of which are outside tropical Africa, the contribution of manufacturing to the economy of Nigeria, places Nigeria far behind the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) of the South East Asia. Manufacturing in Nigeria has largely been dominated by a valorization of raw materials and import-substitution type that are capital intensive rather than labour intensive. In addition, the absence of heavy industries and car manufacturing has militated against effective transfer of technology hence the heavy investment in manufacturing. There is the general low level of inter-industry linkages-failure on the part of industries to utilize the products/by-products of other industries especially in the production process. Studies on manufacturing in Nigeria have focused on small-scale industries and some behavioral aspects of manufacturing at the regional level. In some cases, explanations have been offered in terms of factor endowments. The last three or four decades have largely witnessed a reorientation in industrial geography and especially in a globalizing economy whereby a lot of emphasis is placed on inter-industry linkages, and especially networks of production subcontracting in the development of industrial activities and the economy as a whole. This paper thus seeks to examine the extent to which Nigeria's manufacturing has been affected by inter-industry linkages, and especially production subcontracting, and the challenges for Nigeria's manufacturing/industrial development in the new millennium.

This paper reviews the challenges and opportunities of Nigeria’s industrial development since the past seventy years. It describes the history of industrialization while critiquing the process as well as impact of industrial policies formulation and implementation on Nigeria’s industrialization since 1943. It was observed that there were multiplicity of industrial policies, most of which were either discontinued at their prime stages by succeeding governments or were interrupted by exogenous factors whose effects were ab initio never factored into these policies. It was also revealed that some of these policy changes were mere semantic differences as the concepts and models for implementation remained the same. It was therefore concluded that the fact that the industrial sector contributes only 4 percent to national GDP is an indication of failure on the part of both planning and implementation agencies of government, and that policies that were poached from foreign countries or recommended by development agencies should only be adopted after taking into account the peculiar nature of the Nigerian State.

QEH Working Papers

This paper assesses the industrial performance and capabilities of Nigeria over the last decade. It explores Nigeria's export and production capacity, growth, structure and technological upgrading and compares it to other Sub-Saharan countries. Evidence shows that ...

Crawford Journal of Business and Social Sciences Vol. II No. 2, September, 2012

In interrogating Nigeria’s political economy in the face of current hard economic realities, certain facts need be brought to national consciousness in order to address the impediments to autonomous self-reliant and people-focused development. Fundamentally, Nigerian state was incorporated into the capitalist-imperialist international trade long before her independence. In her relationship, her position was marginal and peripheral, as she could not influence trade or market forces, which imposed on her unequal exchange of her goods in the international market. In her bid to strengthen her comparative advantage as a major cash crop producer, and exporter, the discovery of the black gold abruptly put paid to all efforts in that direction, as the country started to export crude oil to the detriment of agricultural produce, which was the mainstay of the nation. The Nigerian situation became tragic, as the leadership (that managed this transitional period) completely missed golden opportunities to invest substantial part of the proceeds from oil to transform the economic base; develop a powerful industrial state; a robust, self-reliant agricultural sector and promote a technologically powerful oil industry. That is a country that is capable of controlling the down, mid and upper streams of oil production. Today, Nigeria is neither an oil producer nor an agricultural exporter, but a providential rent collector and importer of consumer and investment goods. The entire scenario is saddened by corruption which has virtually destroyed the country. This paper, interrogating on the structure of Nigerian economy from political economy perspective, employs qualitative methods drawing on historical cum institutional analysis and comparative approach. The paper posits that, for a veritable development to take place, there must be a paradigm shift from the present state of crude oil export dependence to the path of diversification, self-reliant agricultural production; full scale industrialization and a completely inward looking nation, to be backed by the Nigerian state, initiating an international forum to renegotiate African trade on the international scene; to address unequal exchange syndrome, in order to add value to the continent’s export goods in the world market. Keywords: political economy, industrialization, diversification, self-reliance, international trade, unequal exchange, dependency, colonization, corruption, leadership

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