Abstract
Theoretical and empirical evidences support the notion that political institutions enhance economic performance in incipient democracies. It is the aim of this paper to ascertain the impact of political institutions on the performance of the Nigerian economy from 1999 to 2018. Consequently, it examines the concepts of political institutions, economic growth and development as well as reviews the trend in real GDP growth rates, youth unemployment and human development index in Nigeria. It was observed that during the 19 years of democratically elected government, there was consistent GDP growth from 1999 to 2002; fluctuating and declining growth from 2003 to 2018. The desired economic growth for the most populous country in Africa was somewhat a mirage and development snail speed. It supports the findings of Anwana and Affia (2018) that political institutions negatively impact growth and development in Nigeria. It suggests a revamp of the current political institutions (the rule of the game) by well meaning Nigerians, the need for reorientation of the masses about the innate power to vote out bad leaders and creation of a system that allows for proper representation of the masses at the state and national houses of assemblies. Improving economic growth and development in Nigeria requires a paradigm shift in her political institutions. Keywords: Economy, political institutions, growth, development, Nigeria DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-4-17 Publication date: February 29 th 2020
Highlights
Achieving economic growth is one of the macroeconomic goals of any government
The desired economic growth for the most populous country in Africa was somewhat a mirage and development snail speed. It supports the findings of Anwana and Affia (2018) that political institutions negatively impact growth and development in Nigeria. It suggests a revamp of the current political institutions by well meaning Nigerians, the need for reorientation of the masses about the innate power to vote out bad leaders and creation of a system that allows for proper representation of the masses at the state and national houses of assemblies
Given the different economic reforms and policies adopted by different administrations in the past 15 years, the possibility of political institutions militating against the desired growth and development in Nigeria, informed this study
Summary
Achieving economic growth is one of the macroeconomic goals of any government. With a population of about 200 million people (World bank, 2019), Nigeria operates a federalist democratic regime and has had more than 15 years of continuous democratic leadership. 5. Nigeria’s economic performance An assessment of the economic performance of Nigeria will be done by analysing the real GDP growth rates www.iiste.org (change in national output), youth unemployment and human development index (HDI). Human development index for Nigeria remained low from 2003 to 2017 despite the different reforms and macroeconomic policies (see table 1) This implies that for 14 years of democratically elected government, the average state of Nigerians in terms of the three basic dimensions of human development (long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living) has not improved significantly. The glairing increase in youth unemployment, decline in GDP growth rates and the consistent low human development index corroborates the claim by Anwana and Affia (2018) that political institutions negatively impact economic growth and development in Nigeria
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