THE STATE AND INSDUTRIAL DEVELOPMENT: A CASE OF THE NIGERIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

THE STATE AND INSDUTRIAL DEVELOPMENT: A CASE OF THE NIGERIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

ABSTRACT

Industrialization is no doubt a major key to the development of a country. Thus, right from colonial to post colonial era, the state in the development countries has adopted several strategies to achieve this objective. While other regions and countries made enormous break through in this process, Africa and Nigeria in particular has recorded insignificant results. In fact, the specific case of Automobile industry is a very pathetic one. This study sets out to examine how dependent capitalist states have conceived and implemented industrial development policies. Successive industrial development policies in Nigeria and how the state has failed to engender industrial progress have been looked at. The Nigerian Automobile Industry was used as a case study. Focusing vividly on the role of the state to champion this process, the study draws inferences from the achievements in South Korea and concludes that this is necessary and practicable in Nigeria too. The study found out that for this to be possible the economic and political class that control the state must be prepared, to be patriotic, nationalistic and willing to undertake such a mission. The major recommendation is that the progressive fraction of that political class and the productive fraction of the economic group all constituting a nationalist wing of the Nigerian bourgeoisie should team up and organise itself politically. When they do this, workers and a mass of the civil society will align with them to take political power democratically in order to control the state. Only such a group can use the state to direct industrial policies capable of perfecting technology to the point of developing an indigenous auto-industry. The example of South Korea as illustrated shows that this is possible.

THE STATE AND INSDUTRIAL DEVELOPMENT: A CASE OF THE NIGERIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY