"Energy Sustainability and Human Welfare in Nigeria: Implications for Sustainable Development "

Abstract

"Despite the high propensity of energy usage in driving the economic activities, the issues of global climate change and global warming which pose enormous threats to human welfare have motivated the growing need for energy sustainability globally. In the light of the above, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 7) advocates for the usage of energy from cleaner sources. Meanwhile, impact of energy usage on human welfare has largely been the issue of concern among the scholars in Nigeria. Against this backdrop, this study examined energy sustainability and human welfare in Nigeria. Consequently, data was collected from secondary sources, and analyzed within the framework of Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Granger causality test. The summary of the principal findings in this is enunciated as follows; energy sustainability and life expectancy had a positive and significant relationship in Nigeria. Government expenditures on health had both negative and insignificant relationship with life expectancy in Nigeria. Also, there was a unidirectional causality flowing from life expectancy to electricity consumption from hydroelectric sources in Nigeria. Furthermore, one way feedback flows from government expenditure on health to life expectancy. From these findings, this study recommends that Nigeria would want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals one (1) - promoting good life for the people, and seven (7) - affordable and clean energy simultaneously before the SDGs timeline elapses in 2030, the Nigerian policymakers and all stakeholders should be aggressively involved in energy sustainability movement in the country."