The Bretton Woods Institutions and Development in Nigeria: 1983-2003

Abstract

Poverty has become endemic in Nigeria despite the hardships endured by the people in two decades of reforms that were largely dictated and sponsored by the Bretton Woods institutions. Due to Nigeria's huge debt burden, it has become difficult to extricate her from the Bretton Woods system as the institutions have become the watchdogs of Western creditor nations. The problem, therefore, is how Nigeria could operate under the Bretton Woods system while ensuring socioeconomic development of the country, and without visiting undue hardships on the people. This study examines the impact of the policies and programmes of the Bretton Woods institutions on socio-economic development in Nigeria. The methodology is library research combined with field survey which covered persons in managerial positions in the agricultural, manufacturing, education and health sectors and other key players in transactions with the international finance institutions and in the management of the Nigerian economy. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) statistical software was used to analyse the result of the survey. The study finds that the reforms and programmes sponsored by the Bretton Woods institutions such as SAP, etc have failed to correct fundamental structural flaws in the Nigerian economy. Though the economy grew by 5.4 percent in the period 1986-91 (which could be considered as the SAP years) as against -2.6 percent for 1980-85, sectors such as manufacturing, education and health remained stagnant. The programmes failed because the basic assumptions of the strategies employed were wrong and more importantly because they were designed for the benefit of the creditors. The study recommends, among other things, that government should adopt a human-centred development strategy and that at least one quarter of oil windfalls should be used to pay off pressing foreign debts in order to lift Nigeria out of servitude and perennial underdevelopment as soon as possible.