An Evaluation of the Government Programme on Investing in the People: A Stakeholder’s Perspective

Abstract

Human capital development and social inclusion have become central concerns for policymakers worldwide. These concerns arise from poor articulation and implementation of programmes targeted at enhancing investment in the people in many societies. Hence, human capital development and social inclusion have suffered setbacks in many countries. Over the years, Nigeria has not ranked well on human capital index and thus its poverty level has continued to rise. A major disconnect in analysing policy programmes in Nigeria is that the achievement of outcomes in this regard, are scarcely reviewed from stakeholders’ perspectives. This study thus stands to fill this gap by examining the targets of the Federal Government Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) covering the 2017-2020 period and its performance in the first two years of implementation. Using a survey approach, the opinions of stakeholders across the five administrative divisions in Lagos State, namely; Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja, Lagos and Epe were adopted and analysed. This provided a representative case for Nigeria in terms of ethnicity, social class, rural, semi-urban and urban population. Given that over 50 percent of commercial activities in Nigeria take place in Lagos with virtually every ethnic group in Nigeria represented in the state. The findings from the survey results show that gaps in job creation increased from 1.5% in 2017 to 5.10 in 2020 with unemployment worsening and the government unable to meet its targets on job creation and empowerment of its youthful population. In addition, only 38.5% of respondents said that the social inclusion strategy through the “Trader money” scheme etc was well administered. The implementation of the ERGP thus failed to improve on the human capital contributions to the wide economy growth process. Also, the plan has not successfully been able to integrate the populace into the growth process of the nation. Therefore, functional education policy, robust and modern health facilities and programmes as well as running an inclusive government should be made the priority of government priorities.