Abstract

This paper presents a sociological appraisal of the efforts of various governments in Nigeria towards economic self-reliance using state-owned enterprises as the vehicle for this purpose. However, due to the internal contradictions inherent in most developing societies like Nigeria, achieving economic self-reliance has continued to elude these states. Nigeria’s public-sector driven economic system has been replaced by government in Nigeria with different privatisation models aimed at strengthening the institutional mechanisms of the state and creating an efficient and effective economic system to drive its development agenda. This paper has identified the factors that negatively affected the functioning of state-owned enterprises and made recommendations to address these problems with the goal of engendering economic self-reliance in Nigeria.

Key words: Economic self-reliance, development, state-owned enterprise, value system, social policy, social welfare.