NIGERIA'S TRANSFORMATION AGENDA, 2011–2015: A POLITICAL ECONOMY ASSESSMENT OF REFORM IMPLEMENTATION AND DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES

Abstract

The interplay between politics and the economy is central to political discourse. This is so because the two are inextricably intertwined and more often than not, successes and/or failures in one inevitably affect the other. This paper examines Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda (2011–2015) through the lens of a qualitative political-economy approach. With the adoption of a retrospective case study design, the study basically relied on documentary analysis of institutional reports, policy documents, and official statistical data to appraise the performance of key economic areas such as power, petroleum, labour and productivity, and external reserves during the period. Drawing on Marxist state theory, the paper evaluates the reform objectives of the selected sectors of Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda and their development outcomes. The findings show that while the transformation agenda reforms had ambitious policy projections that also spurred economic growth, that growth did not translate into tangible socio-economic development. The paper concludes by recommending that achieving meaningful development outcomes in Nigeria requires institutionally anchored reforms and constraining elite capture of the transformation agenda, including the use of performance metrics to measure development outcomes.