SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: MACROECONOMIC STABILITY, GOVERNANCE, AND CONFLICT

This study examines the long-run and short-run relationships between macroeconomic stability, governance quality, conflict dynamics, and sustainable human development in Nigeria over the period 1990-2025. Human development is measured using the Human Development Index (HDI), while inflation represents macroeconomic instability, government effectiveness proxies’ governance quality, and military expenditure and crude death rate capture conflict and insecurity. Using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework, the study finds strong evidence of a stable long-run relationship between human development and its key determinants. Inflation, weak governance, rising military expenditure, and higher mortality rates exert significant adverse effects on human development outcomes in Nigeria. The results highlight the development costs of persistent macroeconomic volatility, institutional fragility, and protracted insecurity. The study concludes that sustainable improvements in human development require an integrated policy approach that simultaneously promotes macroeconomic stability, strengthens governance institutions, and adopts conflict-sensitive development strategies.