Actualizing Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020: Imperatives of the Construction Sector

Abstract

Nigeria’s vision 20:2020 is aimed at placing the country in the league of the first 20 global economies by the year 2020 with a minimum GDP of US$900 billion and per capita income of no less than US$4000 per annum. The Nigerian construction sector provides the much needed physical infrastructure for economic development which is critical toward realizing this laudable vision. The sector’s contribution to overall GDP dropped from 3.76% achieved in 2008 to 3.16% in 2009 and 2.86% in 2010. The Building and Construction sector also recorded a growth rate which slowed down from 12.8% in 2008 to 11.97% in 2009 and 11.85% in 2010. In 2011, the sector recorded a growth rate of 12.26% which is below the target of 19.0% set in the Transformation agenda. The study investigates through empirical means the impacts of the factors influencing the performance of the sector in providing the infrastructural base that contributes to national development. Bret Frischmann’s theory of infrastructure and commons management was adopted to put the work in context. Relative Importance Indices (RII) of 17 relevant factors surveyed revealed that low investment in the construction sector, low involvement of private sector in the provision of infrastructural facilities, lack of policy to promote indigenous contactors, reverse order of industrial development and monumental corruption in the sector with RII of 0.88, 0.84, 0.84, 0.80, and 0.79 respectively are the most significant factors. It is recommended that in order to achieve the vision in the year 2020 there is need for investment in infrastructure development, resuscitation of the decayed infrastructure, private financing of public projects and the need for capacity building.

Keywords: Vision 20:2020, construction sector, economic development, infrastructure, Nigeria.