The Unintended Social Consequences of Privatization in Nigeria

Some features of public enterprises are bureaucracy and uncared attitudes of most public servants; leading to waste, slow growth and inordinate dependence on government support for financing. The essence of privatizing these public enterprises was to give better and more efficient structure to the Nigerian economy while numerous benefits will accrue to the teaming population. However, some unintended social consequences prevailed. Which include the following: a)Unachievable objectives of the programmes due to corrupt practices. b) Low standard of living due to high cost of privatized services. c) Considerable percentage of middle classes dropped to lower classes. d) Unemployment due to mass retrenchment and early death of retirees.