This chapter x-rayed Nigeria's political and economic history from independence to date. Nigeria has been managed under four different paradigms: free market 1960-1972; socialist inclined; mixed economy, posture, structural adjustment, 1986-1994; and quasi-capitalist approach. Based on 39 multivariate time series data, econometric analyses reveal that foreign direct investment, domestic savings (GFCF) capital expenditure, private consumption, and economic openness made a positive and significant impact on the Nigerian economy. On the other hand, import, exchange rate, foreign debt, monetary management indicators, and reinterest rates had negative and significant impacts on the Nigerian economy during the period. The study therefore recommends that Nigeria adopt export focused policy, institute FDI-friendly policies, and improve on her good governance image. In summary, the study concluded that the Nigerian economy could have done better.
Top1. Introduction
The Federal Republic of Nigeria, more commonly called, Nigeria, is a country in West African; bounded by the Republics of Tchard and Niger to the north, by Cameroon to the east, to the west by Benin Republic and to the south by the Atlantic Ocean. With a landmass of 923,770km2; (World Bank), and a population of two hundred and six million people, (206 million) (2022 estimate), Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy by population as well as by nominal GDP and is; therefore, often romanticized as the ‘Giant of Africa’.
Nigeria obtained independence from Great Britain on October 1st, 1960, and inherited the British West Minister Parliamentary system of government with three regions: Western, Eastern, and Northern regions; with a fourth region; the Mid-Western Region, added in 1963.
Nigeria’s Judiciary is also a brought forward of the British Judicial system. The existence of Customary Laws and Courts, in the South and Central parts of Nigeria; and Sharia Law (in the North), are complementary to the Nigerian Legal system occasioned by Nigeria’s demographic and multi-religious composition. The official language in Nigeria is English. There are however over five hundred different languages spoken in Nigeria, three of which Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, are the most prominent.
After a shaky but prosperous start in 1960, Nigeria’s polity witnessed series of crises that culminated into a military coup d’état on January 15th, 1966, which snow-balled into a thirty-month civil war, (June 1967 to January 1970). Nigeria, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country adopted the unitary system of government after the said military coup but couldn’t be sustained.
Nigeria is currently a federation, operating the American-styled presidential system of government with an elected Executive President. There are thirty-six states and an autonomous Federal Capital Territory. There is a bi-camera Legislature at the federal level: the Senate and the House of Representatives; called the Red (Upper) Chamber and the Green (Lower) Chamber respectively. Each state is headed by an elected executive governor with a uni-camera legislature: the State House of Assembly. (Adamolekun & Ayo, 1989; Falola & Heuton, 2008).
Nigeria’s political and economic narrative can be undertaken in three phases: (i) Before Nigeria: that is, before the influx of non-Africans, especially Europeans, into the hinterland of Nigeria and West Africa; up to the beginning of colonization in 1914 when the name Nigeria is said to have been coined; (ii) the colonial period; 1914-1960 and (iii) 1961-date.
To the extent that there was no country called Nigeria before 1914, the history of Nigeria, as a nation, can only start from after that date. Secondly, before then, the area called Nigeria was not, (in fact, had never been) inhabited by a consistent and in any way homogenous aborigines. Rather, a number of empires and kingdoms, made up of different tribes and peoples of different ethnic and racial backgrounds inhabited the land at different times. Prominent among these ancient West African empires and kingdoms were the Songai, Ghana, Benin, Oyo, Borno, Kwararafa, Kanuri; Kanem, Nupe, Junkun, Hausa, Fulbe, Zazzau, the Sokoto Caliphate among others. In the Southeast and the Niger Delta regions also existed some rather autonomous or republican kingdoms like the Okpobo, Istshekiri, Calabaries kingdoms among others (Green, (nd); Atmore, 2008).
It is a generally accepted historical fact that the final collapse of the Oyo empire somewhere in 1935, marked the beginning of sixty or more years, of instability and rivalry among the Yorubas of Western Nigeria and their kins across the West African region (Falola & Heaton, 2008). On the other hand, although the Sokoto Caliphate Jihadists had defeated most other northern kingdoms and empires and appeared to reign over the region before the Europeans come into the Nigerian hinterland; the later were not only able to halt the Caliphate’s advance to the south but also to defeat it and establish the northern protectorate in 1903. (Atmore, 2008; Ochonu, 2008).
Under such a state of affairs, it was not difficult for the colonial masters to take over the political and governance structures (where there were) and replace them with theirs. For this text, this era for the aforementioned reasons, is hardly relevant and is therefore not discussed any further in this text.