Regulatory Regimes And The Ease Of Doing Business In Nigeria

Globally, regulations are a veritable tool of economic reform and their roles as drivers and stabilizers of growth came to the fore of global debate in the aftermath of the collapse of giant corporations such as Enron in 2001 and Lehman Brothers in 2008. Before these institutions filed for bankruptcy, they were among such giant entities popularly tagged as “too big to fail”. The global economic meltdown and financial crises which followed these corporate failures had necessitated the onslaught of various forms of policy and system reforms across the globe, and helped elevate regulations and corporate governance to universal norms.

Coming home, Nigeria’s need for functional regulatory frameworks that would safeguard the economy against systemic failure became imperative in the midst of widespread distress in the banking sector, financial reporting irregularities in corporate entities as well as corruption witnessed in government agencies in the past and contemporary times.

But regulations too have been found to be capable of constituting a clog to economic progress, where they are not well-thought-out or when wrongly applied. In these cases, they strangulate rather than support growth of the economy.

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