A Critique of Nigeria’s National Development Plans from Independence to Recession: The Way Out

Abstract

It is a common knowledge that the Nigerian masses are crying over the deplorable social order, manifest in the overall poor human condition. Despite many development plans made by successive governments of the country to tackle the development problem, not much has been achieved as the trend remains unabated, thus graduating to the current deteriorated economic situation termed recession. This paper critically looked at the various development plans/programmes in Nigeria since independence. The aim was to investigate the factors militating against meaningful development in Nigeria. The paper found out that the various development programmes were unsuccessful as none satisfactorily provided the desired goals. The circumstances that led to the failure were x-rayed thereby providing insights towards effective solution to the nagging socio-economic development problem in Nigeria. Recommendations were made among which was that the present government under President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, and subsequent Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officers (CEO) should genuinely fight corruption which is the hub to all the factors militating against national development.