Governmental expenditure and National development of Nigeria, 1990-2020: an empirical review

Abstract

Background One of the main goals of the government is to ensure a development that would enhance the living standard of the people in the society. In this regard, capital expenditure that would promote infrastructure is most desired. However, in Nigeria, the government spends more on administrative cost (recurrent expenditure) than capital expenditure. Under such condition, contributions to economic growth and national development become an illusion. Methods This study employed Augmented Dickey Fuller Test (ADF) with Bound testing procedure, time series data that covers the period from 1990 to 2020 in Nigeria were used. Results The result from the analysis showed that governmental expenditure has a significant effect on the national development of Nigeria. All the variables have a long-run relationship with economic growth (RGDP), according to the ARDL model’s results. If the government poor policies on education, health services, and infrastructure etc. are addressed, in the long-run, Nigeria will achieve monumental development. Conclusion Open Peer Review Approval Status 1 2 version 1 19 Nov 2024 view view Anthony Orji , University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria 1. Uju Victoria Okoli , Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria 2. Any reports and responses or comments on the article can be found at the end of the article. Page 1 of 13 F1000Research 2024, 13:1393 Last updated: 05 JAN 2025 Corresponding author: Abolaji Atobatele (abolaji.atobatele@covenantuniversity.edu.ng) Author roles: Atobatele A: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing; Moliki A: Conceptualization, Project Administration, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing; Olaoye O: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft Preparation; GBEREVBIE D: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – Original Draft Preparation; Dele-Dada M: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – Review & Editing Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. Grant information: The Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation, and Discovery (CUCRID) provided invaluable financial support during the course of this study, which the authors of this paper would like to acknowledge and appreciate. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Copyright: © 2024 Atobatele A et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. How to cite this article: Atobatele A, Moliki A, Olaoye O et al. Governmental expenditure and National development of Nigeria, 1990-2020: an empirical review [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations, 1 not approved] F1000Research 2024, 13 :1393 https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.157915.1 First published: 19 Nov 2024, 13:1393 https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.157915.1 The study adopted indices such as expenditure on Social and Community Services, Economic Services and Administrative Services to reflect the dynamics of government expenditure coupled with the yearly data garnered from the Central Bank of Nigeria spanning from 1990 to 2020.