Education policy in Nigeria, social citizens hip and national development: Returning to the nationalists’ perspective

This paper explores education policy programmes in the immediate post-independent Nigeria with emphasis on the normative understanding of social service provision as a fundamental condition for development. It analyses government social expenditure and the extent to which this enhances social citizenship and economic development. The paper, which is descriptive and analytical, argues that the neoliberalism that embodies minimal government participation, primacy of the market forces and private participation in the provision of social services has derailed Nigerian state from the social policy programmes rooted in the political and cultural ideologies of redistributive egalitarian principle. State dominant role in the provision of social services such as education and health the paper argues is imperative to enhancing social citizenship, economic development and industrialisation as demonstrated by the nationalists in the first decade of Nigeria’s independence.Keywords: Nationalists, Education Policy, Social Citizenship, Economic Development, Neo-liberalis