Africa’s Infrastructure and Economic Competitiveness: the Case for Nigeria

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to conduct an empirical study on how infrastructure through its numerous dimensions affects Nigeria’s economic growth and competitiveness. The study is modeled on Fred Riggs (1964:3) Participatory Approach to Development. Thus, the study sought among others to examine the challenges Nigeria is facing in addressing her huge infrastructural gap for improved economic growth and competitiveness, and also to find out the relationship between infrastructural development and economic competitiveness in Nigeria. Questionnaire instrument was used to collect data from the respondents in the various ministries, relevant public and manufacturers in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. The instrument was administered to 397 respondents that formed the sample size. The data collected were analyzed using Z-test at 0.05 level of significance. Two hypotheses guided the study. The results showed that the level of infrastructural development in Nigeria affects her economic competitiveness level with the outside world, and that corruption in Nigeria’s political and administrative institutions constitutes serious challenge to addressing the nation’s infrastructural gap. Thus the study recommends among others that institutional environment should be enhanced to support a competitive economy through improving concerns about property rights, ethics, corruption, undue influence and government inefficiencies.