Agriculture and mining performance in Nigerian economic development planning from 1958-80.

The purpose of this study was to find out whether there was a shift in emphasis from agriculture to mining in the Nigerian economic development between 1958-1980. This shift in emphasis led .to a lower Gross Development Product (GDP), higher unemployment, decreases in food and agricultural production and reductions in both tax and export revenues.The data used in this thesis were extracted from secondary sources which include: First, Second and Third Federal Government of Nigeria National Development Plans, documents published by the Federal Government of Nigeria. Other sources include publications by organizations, both private and public, and textbooks. The above were the sources through which statistics for this study were compiled.The two most important economic indicators in Nigeria's economy are the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (output), and the expenditures (input), which were used for the analysis.In the analysis of the data, both the absolute and the percentage values for the GDP (output) and expenditure (input) were plotted for various sectors of the economy, ranging from agriculture, mining, manufacturing, electricity, building, distribution, transportation, and education to health were graphically expressed. The various values of each of the sectors were compared to that of agriculture. To substantiate the findings of the absolute values of the expenditure, the percentage values of the expenditure were also graphically expressed.The results of the statistical analysis used indicate the following:1) That agriculture is highly and positively correlated with the other sectors of the Nigerian economy;2) Manufacuring and transportation indicate a shift in emphasis from agriculture to these two sectors;3) There was no shift in emphasis from agriculture to the mining sector of the economy;4) There were also no shifts in emphasis from agriculture to the following sectors of the economy - education, health and electricity;5) Three other sectors - government, building and distribution expenditures - could not be expressed graphically because of the difficulty in aggregating data for these three sectors;6) The mining sector of the Nigerian economy was not a force before 1975 but, since 1975, it has grown at a faster rate than any other sector;7) While the mining and agriculture sectors indicate growth and they grew more than the amount invested in them, the other sectors - manufacturing, transportation, electricity, health and education - took more money in their expenditures than they put out in their GDP's.As a result of the above findings, there may have been other factors responsible for the decline of agriculture in Nigeria's economic development planning. These factors might include: lack of mechanization of farming techniques, bribery and corruption, land tenure system, lack of adequate manpower, the problem of inadequate overall planning and coordination, and the diversification in the Nigerian economy which resulted from the attempt to improve Nigeria's economy.Department of Urban PlanningThesis (M.U.R.P.