ROLE OF THE AVIATION INDUSTRY IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA

Abstract

In this study, the role of the aviation industry in the economic development of Nigeria was examined. The study was undertaken in view of the critical position of the industry to growth but which, in the case of Nigeria, has appeared to be rather ambiguous in terms of contribution to growth. The researcher used time series data on 36 observations of the Aviation industry revenue (AVR) and throughput of passengers (ATP) spanning from 1985 to 2020. This was plugged into an OLS regression equation and tested for significance to estimate the contributory share of these variables to the GDP. Results show that the parameter estimates for ATP turned up with the value of 0.121 (P-value =0.0621) while ATP turned up with the value of 0.035 (P-value of 0.0751) both of which are insignificant at the 5% critical level. This led to the conclusion that the aviation industry in Nigeria presently makes an insignificant contribution to economic growth in the country. It was however found that the industry is faced with myriads of challenges like poor infrastructure, management and regulation among others. These may have been responsible for the weak contributory power of the industry. it was recommended that the industry repositions for more investment while the stakeholders are called to be more diligent with managing the affairs of the industry. The government was also called to improve the overall macroeconomic environment.