Government Expenditure and Its Effect on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria

This study examined government expenditure and its effect on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria. This was undertaken given that Nigeria is a democratic underdeveloped economy seeking sustainable development. The Millennium Development Goals, the predecessor of SDGs, did not achieve much and now there are the Sustainable Development Goals to finance in the face of a volatile mono-economy, corruption, weak budgetary system, decaying infrastructure and security challenges. The specific objective of this study is to analyze the structure and trend of government expenditure from 1986 to 2020. The study adopted an ex-post-facto research design. Secondary data was obtained from publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics, Transparency International and the World Bank. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used for analysis. The findings of the study revealed that recurrent expenditure outlay is higher than capital expenditure, the economic and social service sectors expenditure is inadequate to foster any meaningful sustainable development and, corruption is rife in the country. Hence, the study concludes that there are indications that the SDGs just like its predecessors, the MDGs, is on the verge of achieving poor outcomes if urgent measures are not taken to correct this. So, the study recommends that the structure of government expenditure should be reversed and made adequate; environmental sector expenditure should be disaggregated for easy inference to ensure that the issues of environmental degradation are dealt with; and agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Police and other security agencies should be strengthened.