Economic Governance And Management In The North Central Zone Of Nigeria

Countries that have imbibed the culture of effective governance, especially economic governance developed more rapidly than those that failed given the key components that made economic governance. The North Central zone of Nigeria (comprising the states of Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Nasarawa and Plateau and the territory of Federal Capital-Abuja ) is an integral part of Nigeria that over the years had suffered from the mirage of bad economic governance. This situation is reflected in several policy inconsistencies, policy somersaults, failure to effectively implement plans/policies/programmes of the government, institutional weaknesses, corruption, mismanagement and the lack of political will to address corruption and mismanagement of resources (human, financial and material) which have led to underdevelopment, increase in the rate of poverty, increase in unemployment, increase in inequality, increase in insecurity and infrastructure decay among other challenges of the zone. For instance, as indicated in Table 1, given the failure of plans/policies and programmes of governments over time due mostly to corruption and mismanagement, the North Central zone of Nigeria recorded an increase in the prevalence of bribery than any of the zones in the country from 28.1 per cent in 2016 to 32.1 per cent in 2019. Briberies are taken and given in this zone just like any other zone to speed up procedures and avoid levies from government services and fines for offences committed by some of their citizens.