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The Nigerian economy in the last two decades up until 2013 has been growing at an average of 6% and yet unemployment was equally growing in the region of 20% within the same period. This paradoxical situation has led to a flurry of studies and postulations aimed at providing explanation and solution to the phenomenon. This study making use of a regression model with annual data from 1980 to 2013, empirically determined the impact of public sector expenditures (CEXP and REXP) together with private sector investment (PINV) on unemployment (UNEMP) in Nigeria. Capital expenditure and private sector investment both in the medium to long-run were found to serve as catalyst towards reduction of unemployment, while recurrent expenditure was not statistically strong enough to do same. The R-2 (0.84) showed that greater proportion of the total variations in UNEMP was brought about by variations in the regressors. Further tests like autocorrelation, hetroscedasticity, specification error, and multicollinearity indicated respectively that there is no presence of autocorrelation hence the model produced a parsimonious result; the variance is constant over time; the link test confirmed by Ramsey reset test suggested there was no specification error; and lastly the variance inflation factor (VIF) of the variables implies that there is no evidence of multicollinearity. The study recommends, inter alia, that the proportion of capital expenditure in Nigerian budget profile should be systematically increased while the recurrent expenditure should be reduced; and there is need to stimulate competition among investors through removal of structural and institutional rigidities and government should design clear policy incentives to private sector investment.

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The seventh goal of the MDGs is to ensure environmental sustainability which includes as its targets: increasing access to new technologies to support sustainable development by making information about sustainable practices more widespread, and bringing new technologies to rural areas such that people will be able to have better access to information and employment without having to migrate to urban areas; these would without doubt help to system the flow of rural-urban migration and as well stem the growth of slums. Good quality housing as a basic need is lacking for a sizeable number of people around the globe but seem most severe in developing economies including Nigeria. Also few houses are available, especially in the urban centers, to the ever increasing number of workers in both formal and informal sectors. The debates on the direction of housing and welfare policy have often been guided by assumptions derived from a preponderance of Anglo-American cases and perspectives. The purpose of this study is to present an alternative approach to housing policies especially in Nigeria; and we have come to the inescapable conclusion that housing is a social responsibility which cannot be left to the free play of market forces. This study therefore recommends the need to strengthen institutions and overhaul systems and processes for a more virile housing sector such that a balance between the urban housing units and the rural housing units could be attained.

Nigeria has been witnessing, for some three decades now, a rising trend in the size of her public expenditures and questions been raised on whether this upsurge could be related to economic growth. This study deliberately sets to reexamine the nexus between public expenditures and public expenditures in Nigeria adopting the Error Correction Model (ECM) estimation technique and the Pairwise Granger Causality test with disaggregated yearly data between 1980 and 2016. The findings suggested that the capital spending of the government has an inverse relationship with economic growth and also significant influence on economic growth. The government recurrent spending has a direct relationship with economic growth but statistically insignificant effects on economic growth. There is no causal relationship, as suggests by the result of the Granger Causality test, between public capital expenditure and economic growth. While there is existence of unidirectional causalities where exchange rate caused economic growth; economic growth caused private foreign investment; and economic growth caused public recurrent expenditure. The recommendations suggest that governments should make more provision for capital expenditures in the budget and ensure implementations are being properly monitored to ensure that the funds are not diverted to other uses; while cost of governance should be moderated with a view of making less provision for recurrent expenditure.