Abstract
This paper attempts to describe how human environment is an important determinant of socio-economic development. Over the past three decades, Nigeria has been confronted with deep-seated socio-economic crisis evident in high level of poverty, inflation, foreign debt overhang, closure of industries, epileptic power supply, budget deficit, absolute lack of good governance at the grass root, environmental degradation and high unemployment. In the early part of the 21st century, there was high hope among Nigerians that the emergence of democracy and the increasing global capitalist markets feasible in the oil and telecommunication sectors will result in high level of accelerated development. Elsewhere in Asia, globalization and world capitalist market have changed the faces of fundamental problems of underdevelopment. Studies have even confirmed that the successes recorded by China in the global markets confirm that a country’s economy does not grow in vacuum; it exists within the environment and thrives therein. The failure and crises experienced in Nigeria today have been linked with cultural factors such as corruption, leadership failure, lack of entrepreneurial skills, over dependence on western values and culture, insincerity and weak bureaucracies. Using quantitative data and content analysis, the paper concludes that Nigerian government at all levels must rise up to the challenges posed by the problems of underdevelopment in the 21st century.
Highlights
Nigeria is rich in human and material resources, its economic and political developments have been fraught with crises since independence in 1960
While this thinking continues about global capitalist development, researches conducted by the United Nations and the World Bank et al have shown that Nigeria's economic development is routinely constrained by some inherent cultural factors (NISER, 2000)
The results to be addressed are the cultural impediments to socio-economic development in Nigeria
Summary
Nigeria is rich in human and material resources, its economic and political developments have been fraught with crises since independence in 1960. With the collapse of the World Bank and International Monetary Funds Policy's projects on Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Africa, many questions have been raised by scholars on the factors impeding economic development in leading African nations including Nigeria (Ake, 1996; Jega, 2003). They argued that economic liberization in other parts of the world have continued to yield anticipated results, increasing global trade and technological advancements such that by the end of the 21st century some emergent economies have appeared on the global capitalist markets.
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