ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that Nigeria's potential for development in the twenty-first century will be shaped by a number of factors. It examines the predicaments facing Nigeria and how they have become more manifest in each attempt to attain democratic rule and economic reform. The chapter provides an opportunity to observe how respect for human rights, democratization, and broad-based sustainable development efforts have interacted with market-oriented economic policies in the past three decades in Nigeria. Effective decision-making is only possible in conditions that promote cooperation between the military and higher bureaucracy in Nigeria, but such cooperation has diminished markedly. Nigeria will still be in search of a technology that utilizes locally available resources, and produces products that satisfy domestic need well into the twenty-first century. Fiscal reform for the twenty-first century should also promote decentralization of government, allowing local governments to raise revenue and spend it for local infrastructure and services.
