Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Upon taking power in August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida promised a decisive course of economic and political change for Nigeria. Alongside a phased transition to democratic rule, the new President outlined far-reaching reforms intended to alleviate major distortions in the economy, to resolve a lingering impasse with external creditors, and to reduce a mounting burden of debt. Within a year, a comprehensive structural adjustment programme (SAP) was launched, incorporating key policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and yielding significant early results in stabilising the economy and arresting decline.
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18 In 1989, a two-tiered pricing structure was introduced as a means of phasing-in a price increase on fuels.
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29 See Jega, loc. cit.
30 Lewis, ‘Economic Statism’, p. 445.
31 Abdul Raufu Mustapha, ‘Structural Adjustment and Agrarian Change in Nigeria’, in Olukoshi (ed.), op. cit. pp. 121–2.
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