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The global crisis of social science manifests in Nigeria in remarkable ways. Beyond the fundamental issues of worldview and methodology, which are neither unique to the social sciences nor to Nigeria, are the apparent lethargic response of Nigeria policy makers to social science research and the complication and contamination of both this response and the research agenda itself by the preferences of external agencies using funding of policy implementation and research as a bait. However, to leave the matter at this is to “pass the buck”. This study uses the method of content survey of prominent social science journals in Nigeria to assess the structure of contemporary social science research in the country. The survey reveals that contemporary research emphasizes basic research over and above policy-relevant research, and hence, questions their relevance to the needs of policy makers. Some suggestions are made as to the way out of this situation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the useful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this article..