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Indigenous Enterprise in Nigerian Manufacturing

  • J. O. Odufalu
Extract

In spite of the predilections of some development economists, the spate of programmes for industrialisation in develop countries – some times supported or sponsored by technologically advanced countries and international organisations – attests to the current widespread belief that industrialisation is a sine qua non for rapid economic growth of most developing countries. However, unlike Japan's industrialisation, which was achieved mostly by internal reorganisation and the acquisition of knowledge and techniques from abroad, Nigeria's industrial progress has so far been charted largely by foreign capital and expertise, so that planners, although imbued with a religious faith in industrialisation, begin to entertain fears about the country's over-dependence on external sources of capital, high-level manpower, and enterprise.1 These fears found expression in the National Development Plan, 1962–68, thus:

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Page 593 note 1 Following Higgins, B., Economic Development (London, 1968), enterprise or ‘entrepreneurship’ is here construed as ‘the function of seeing investment and production opportunities, organising an enterprise to undertake a new production process, raising capital, hiring labour, arranging for a supply of raw materials, finding a site and combining these factors of production into a going concern; introducing new techniques and commodities; discovering new sources of natural resources; and selecting top managers for day-to-day operations’. I also accept the Nigerian-based definition of Aluko, S. A. in ‘The Educated in Business: the Calabar home farm – a case-study’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies (Ibadan), VIII, 2, 07 1966.

Page 593 note 2 National Development Plan, 1962–1968 (Lagos, 1962).

Page 594 note 1 Second National Development Plan, 1970–1974 (Lagos, 1970).

Page 594 note 2 Kilby, P., Industrialization in an Open Economy: Nigeria, 1945–1966 (Cambridge, 1969). The U.N. Year Book of National Accounts Statistics, 1968 (New York), shows the manufacturing share of G.D.P. at current factor cost in Kenya as II·, Uganda 7·6, and Zambia 9·3 per cent.

Page 595 note 1 Computed from Digest of Statistics (Lagos), 10 1970. The 1967/1968 figures were computed from Second National Development Plan, 1970–1974 (Lagos, 1970), p. 50.

Page 595 note 2 Second National Development Plan, 1970–1974, p. 537.

Page 595 note 3 In a cross-section study of the G.D.P. of 41 countries, presented at the International Symposium on Industrial Development held in Athens in 1967, it was found that ‘changes in the relative importance of agriculture and industry are the core of the process of growth, and in industry it is the role of the manufacturing sector that appears to be the strategic factor in modern economic growth’; also that ‘the most significant change accompanying the increase in the level of per capita income is characterised by a decline in the share of agriculture and a rise in the share of manufacturing.’ See U.N.I.D.O., ‘The Role of the Industrial Sector in Economic Development’, in Indissirialization and Productivity (New York), Bulletin, 14, 1969.

Page 596 note 1 Sources: as for Table I. The coefficient of variation is highly significant, if % or over; significant, if 25–44%; probably significant, if 10–24%; and insignificant, if less than 10 %. Cf. U.N.I.D.O. op. cit.

Page 597 note 1 Source: Industrial Survey of Nigeria, 1963 (Lagos, 1966), tables 1, 5, 7, and 8.

Page 598 note 1 Source: Central Bank of Nigeria, Economic and Financial Review (Lagos), 12 1968. Figures in parentheses indicate net annual investment.

Page 598 note 2 Source: ibid. Figures in parentheses indicate net annual investment.

Page 599 note 1 Second National Development Plan, 19701974, p. 138.

Page 599 note 2 In fact, using recent projections (ibid.), the coefficient of variation for agriculture would be 10·5 per cent and manufacturing about 41 per cent, by 1974.

Page 599 note 3 United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, Structure and Growth of Selected African Economies (New York, 1958), quoted in Meier, G. M., Leading Issues in Development Economics (New York, 2nd edn. 1970), p. 126.

Page 600 note 1 This figure does not entirely reflect the scarcity of this class of labour in the country, for some foreign-owned firms prefer employees from their home country to Nigerians with equivalent qualifications and experience.

Page 600 note 2 A firm is classified as non-indigenous if the non-indigenous proportion of its paid-up capital is 50 per cent or more.

Page 601 note 1 Asiodu, P. C., ‘Industrial Development’, paper submitted to Conference on National Reconstruction and Development in Nigeria (Ibadan, 1969, mimeo.); also Second National Development Plan, 1970–1974, pp. 144–5.

Page 601 note 2 See, for example, Harris, J. R. and Rowe, M. P., ‘Entrepreneurial Patterns in the Nigerian Sawmilling Industry’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, VIII, 1, 03 1966; J. R. Harris, ‘Nigerian Enterprise in the Printing Industry’, ibid. X, 2, July 1968; and Schatz, S. P., ‘Economic Environment and Private Enterprise in West Africa’, in The Economic Bulletin of Ghana (Legon), VII, 4, 1964.

Page 602 note 1 Bain, J. S., Barriers to New Competition (Cambridge, Mass., 1956).

Page 602 note 2 Harris and Rowe, ioc. cit.

Page 602 note 3 Schatz, S. P., ‘The Capital Shortage Illusion: government lending in Nigeria’, in Oxford Economic Papers (Oxford), XVII, 2, 07 1965.

Page 603 note 1 Katzin, M., ‘The Role of the Small Entrepreneur’, in Herskovits, M. J. and Harwitz, M. (eds.), Economic Transition in Africa (London, 1964).

Page 603 note 2 Schatz, ‘Economic Environment and Private Enterprise in West Africa’, loc. cit.

Page 603 note 3 Schatz, S. P. and Edokpayi, S. I., ‘Economic Attitudes of Nigerian Businessmen’, in Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies, IV, 3, 11 1962.

Page 604 note 1 Ibid.

Page 605 note 1 Second National Development Plan. No clear definition is given of what constitutes a large or medium-scale industry.

Page 605 note 2 West Africa (London), 9 04 1971, p. 387.

Page 605 note 3 Asiodu, ‘Industrial Development’, loc. cit. A recent conference of the Chamber of Commerce, Mines, and Industries called on the Government for more stringent action, and the Organisation of Nigerian Indigenous Businessmen may also exert considerable pressure.

Page 605 note 4 Second National Development Plan, p. 146.

Page 605 note 5 Ibid. pp. 284–6.

Page 606 note 1 Schatz and Edokpayi, ‘Economic Attitudes of Nigerian Businessmen’, loc. cit.

Page 607 note 1 Akinrele, A., ‘The Role of Research in the Industrial Development of Nigeria’, in Annual Report, Federal Institute of Industrial Research (Lagos, 1968), p. 31.

Page 607 note 2 The Administrative Research Group was set up by Chief S. O. Adebo, then Secretary to the Government and Head of Service, Western Nigeria, to look into various problems of public administration referred to it from time to time.

* Lecturer, Institute of Administration, University of Ife, Ibadan.

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