Archives of Business Research – Vol.7, No.6 Publication Date: June. 25, 2019 DOI: 10.14738/abr.76.6716. Ayuba, B. (2019). The Effects of Unethical Marketing Practices on Nigerian Economy and the Quest for National Development. Archives of Business Research, 7(6), 191-211. The Effects of Unethical Marketing Practices on Nigerian Economy and the Quest for National Development Dr. Bello Ayuba Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Abuja, Gwagwalada, Abuja, FCT- Nigeria. ABSTRACT The main objective of the study is to examine the effects of unethical marketing practices on the Nigerian economy. As part of the methodology both primary and secondary sources of data were used. The data were analysed using Descriptive Statistics, Chi – square and Regression Analysis to test the formulated hypotheses which reveals that, “unethical marketing practices affects the country’s economy in the areas of economic growth such as decline in GDP, Increased inflationary activity, decline in patronage leading to closure of factories and plants and subsequently, unemployment, as well as bribery and corruption, poor infrastructure and the lack of innovative entrepreneurship skills”. The findings also, reveal that the socially irresponsible actions of some Nigerian business managers cause environmental degradation of some basic needs in the course of marketing activities through air pollution, land pollution and water pollution resulting to huge waste of solid, liquid and gaseous substance which threaten societal well-being. Among the major recommendations are the need for Federal government to ensure that business regulatory bodies are alive to their responsibilities by ensuring that adequate laws with stiffer penalties on violations of marketing ethics are strengthened to help in combating all the unethical marketing practices bedevilling the Nigerian society. The study concludes that marketers should note that they are responsible for most of the activities necessary to create more customers; they should know that customer’s satisfaction should be the ultimate goal of any marketing activity and this must be achieved through enhancing societal well-being by being ethical and socially responsible in their marketing activities by shunning all those practices that are deceptive, exploitative and dangerous to human life. Keywords: Marketing Practice, National Development, Nigerian Economy, Unethical Conduct. INTRODUCTION There is a lot of debates and criticisms by scholars on the marketing discipline; marketing has taken the most of the criticisms as compared to other management fields (Kennedy & Lawton, 1993). The social criticism of marketing has been classified into those alleged to hurt individual consumers, society as a whole and other business firms (Kotler, 2003).It has been accused of unethical practices that encourage excessive materialism, environmental pollution and deceptive promotional campaigns, as well as influencing consumers into buying what they don’t really need or want. Other critics (such as Nantel & Weeks, 1996; Malliaris, 2001) were of the view that marketing pollutes the natural environment, results to insufficient social goods, cultural pollution and excessive political power which can impact negatively on any economy. However, in contrast to the assertions of its opponents, several marketing scholars believed that the core ideology for marketing is customer/consumer satisfaction. If customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal, one would have a hard time questioning its morality (Rao & Singhapakdi, 1997). Thus, there are two points of view, one that criticise marketing as being unethical, and the other that denies the ethicality of marketing arguing that customer satisfaction is marketing’s ultimate goal of any marketing practitioner. But the question is; do the Nigerian marketers provide the much needed satisfaction to their customers/consumers