Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and Nigeria’s Development: Lessons for the Government

This paper examined SAP and Nigeria’s development: Lessons for the government’. With the collapse of world oil prices and the sharp decline in petroleum output in the early 1980s, the country was in dire financial straits and serious economic quagmire. This led to austerity measures in the country. In 1986, the Babangida regime in response to this economic crisis started implementing the Structural Adjustment Progeamme (SAP) which was prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as the panacea to the country’s economic woes. Some of the conditionalities of this programme include the devaluation of Nigeria’s currency, privatization and commercialization of public enterprises, removal of petroleum products subsides, reductions in expenditure on social services like health, education, water, sanitation etc, as well as rationalization of labour in the public sector. The socio-economic impacts of each of these conditionalities were highlighted in this study. The researcher employed content and documentary analysis as the methodology of this paper. Also the descriptive and qualitative method of data analysis was employed. It was manifestly demonstrated in this study that SAP has contributed significantly to the backwardness and lack of development of Nigeria. Some of the recommendations prescribed in this study include, the need to diversity the nation’s economy by developing sectors like agriculture, solid minerals, as well as the manufacturing sector, restructuring the country in order to promote true federalism, drastically reducing corruption and capital flight in the country, as well as making and implementing economic policies which will be in consonance with our historical, economic and cultural realities.