Institutional Performance and Economic Development in Nigeria

Despite the huge amount of abundant resources that abound in the territory of Nigeria, it still remains a mystery that the country trails behind other great nations of the world (some of which are not as rich as Nigeria) in terms of growth and development. Policies have been formulated as well as imitated from other nations; yet no tangible result has been achieved so far, showing that no size fits all. This research work identifies institutional performance as the root cause of Nigeria's problem since she is endowed with geography already. The roles of requisite institutions for successful economic performance were described and using descriptive statistics, the researchers critically examined the institutional performance of Nigeria over the years using about six dimensions of institutional performance which include: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Rule of law and Control of Corruption. It was found that the performance of Nigeria was very low on all counts and in comparison with selected countries like Ghana, South Africa, Japan and USA, Nigeria lagged behind in all the indicators. After careful analysis and cross examination, the GEAR rectification kit was recommended to help improve the institutional performance of Nigeria and ultimately, lead to the economic prosperity of the nation