ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the development question by reviewing contemporary development paradigms, their theoretical relevance and practical application to developmental problems in northern Nigeria. It examines the key obstacles to Nigeria's economic development, which include corruption and business fraud. While the rest of the world is undergoing profound changes in economic development, Africa is still at the fringes. For Frank 'economic development and underdevelopment are the opposite faces of the same coin. The dependency and world system perspectives perceive the debt factor to be one reason for the inability of most developing countries to disentangle themselves from their present economic problems. For Adigun, any analysis on culture, and especially, its role in economic development, would be incomplete without some discussion of the role of corruption. The intrusion of informal constraints, such as ethnic and social factors, on policy matters have led to inconsistencies in the application of formal rules and sanctions.
