SAP @40: CSOs, Labour leaders, experts, others demand new development model for Nigeria

Some labour leaders, development experts and civil society organisations and economists have declared that the country’s market-driven reform model has failed to deliver industrialisation, mass job creation and inclusive prosperity, calling for a new development strategy anchored on a capable developmental state.

The call is coming forty years after Nigeria adopted the controversial Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

The consensus emerged Thursday in Abuja at a high-level conference titled “Forty Years of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in Nigeria: History, Impact and the Way Forward,” organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) in collaboration with ActionAid Nigeria, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), CITAD, CISLAC and other partners.

Participants said while SAP fundamentally shifted Nigeria from a state-led economy to a market-oriented one through liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation, it failed to deliver the structural transformation it promised.

They said Nigeria remains trapped in weak industrial capacity, heavy dependence on crude oil exports, high unemployment, persistent poverty and fragile public institutions.

In his welcome address, Founding Executive Director of Centre LSD, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, said the conference was designed to undertake an evidence-based reassessment of one of Nigeria’s most consequential economic policies and extract lessons for ongoing reforms.

He observed that many of the current economic policies—including exchange-rate liberalisation, fuel subsidy removal, fiscal consolidation and public sector restructuring—closely mirror the prescriptions introduced under SAP in 1986.

“Whether one regards SAP as a necessary response to an economic crisis or as the beginning of many of our developmental challenges, there is no doubt that it fundamentally altered the direction of Nigeria’s economy and society,” Igbuzor said.

According to him, economic reforms should ultimately be judged not by macroeconomic indicators alone but by their ability to create jobs, reduce poverty, strengthen institutions, improve education and healthcare, deepen industrialisation and restore hope to citizens.

The development expert said Nigeria must move beyond decades of “adjustment” and embrace a genuine development agenda driven by a democratic developmental state working in partnership with the private sector, civil society and citizens.

Delivering the keynote address on behalf of renowned political economist Prof. Adebayo Olukoshi, Director of Operations at AIPCTA, described SAP as perhaps the most influential economic reform programme in Nigeria’s post-independence history.

He explained that contemporary debates surrounding exchange-rate reforms, subsidy removal, privatisation and debt sustainability cannot be understood without appreciating SAP’s legacy, noting that many present-day reforms represent a continuation of its underlying philosophy rooted in the Washington Consensus promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

ActionAid Nigeria’s Head of Programmes and Policy, Celestine Odo, described SAP as an austerity programme that had imposed severe social and economic hardship across Nigeria and much of Africa.

Representing the Country Director, Odo said the programme’s emphasis on reducing public spending and expanding market forces had weakened access to healthcare, education and other essential public services.

Drawing from ActionAid’s post-2023 subsidy removal assessments, he said many households now struggle to afford three meals a day, while children increasingly attend school hungry and families resort to desperate coping mechanisms.

“The economy may be growing on paper, but poverty and inequality are increasing. That kind of growth has no human face,” he said.

Odo rejected suggestions that SAP could simply be modified with social interventions, insisting that the ideology itself places markets above people.

“No serious country abandons its citizens to the market. Governments in Europe, America and Scandinavia spend heavily on social protection because governance is about service, not profit,” he added.

Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Dauda Garuba, similarly faulted SAP’s ideological foundation, arguing that the reforms steadily weakened the Nigerian state by reducing its responsibility for providing public services.

He linked the gradual commercialisation of education and healthcare to SAP-era reforms, saying public institutions deteriorated as private alternatives expanded.

“Markets are driven by profit, while governance is driven by service. Government cannot be run with the ethics of the market,” Garuba said.

He urged Nigeria to rebuild state capacity and restore government’s central role in driving national development.

“If you discover that you are on the wrong road, no matter how far you have travelled, the right thing is to retrace your steps. Nigeria must return to building a developmental state that works for all its citizens,” he said.

For pro-democracy activist Ayo Obe, while responding to questions on whether President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration’s reforms resemble SAP, said there was unmistakable continuity between both policy frameworks.

“The floating of the naira and fuel subsidy removal are core principles of SAP. President Tinubu’s reforms are another attempt to see whether Nigeria can implement SAP and get it right,” he said.

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