IOSR Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 25, Issue 10, Series 3 (October. 2020) 18-35 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2510031835 www.iosrjournals.org 18 |Page Post Covid-19 Survival Trajectory for the Nigerian Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Ita, Ibok Ibok 1 , Esienanwan Esien Efiong 2 1 (Financial System Strategy (FSS2020) Secretariat, Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria) 2 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Federal University of Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria) ABSTRACT: Background: Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are critical drivers of global economies. With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus infection, these enterprises have suffered major losses with the attendant reduction in global economic activities. Nigeria was not exempted in the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. As the lockdown across Nigeria begins to ease, it became imperative to evaluate effects of the pandemic on MSMEs in the nation‟s capital, Abuja. The work also examined factors that can enhance the survival of this sector post covid-19. The variables assessed were access to finance, infrastructure: electricity/telecommunication, and innovation/new product development. Materials and Methods: The sample size was 400. This was gotten from the population of 504,329 applying Taro Yamane method of sample size determination. A structured questionnaire was administered to 400 respondents in the MSMEs sector in Abuja, where three hundred and eighty-nine respondent (97.25 %) were viable. Thus, the result from this study represents the responses from 389 questionnaires. Three hypotheses were tested with simple regression using SPSS version 21. Results: The results showed that MSMEs were adversely affected in different ways by covid-19. There will be an increased survival of MSMEs in Abuja at 6.8, 6 and 5.9 times if given access to finance, infrastructure such as electricity/telecommunication, and innovation/new product development respectively. Conclusion: Provision of finance is most critical to the survival of MSMEs in Abuja post covid-19 followed by infrastructure and innovation/new products development respectively. KEY WORD: Micro small and medium enterprises; Post Covid-19; Nigeria; Abuja; Economy; Infrastructure; Coronavirus pandemic --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 26-09-2020 Date of Acceptance: 09-10-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION The novel “severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus-2 also called SARS-CoV-2 causes an infectious disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)” 1 . Outbreak of this infection first emerged at the central Chinese city of “Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019.” By 30 th January, 2020, “the disease outbreak was declared by World Health Organization (WHO) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern” 2 . By 11 th of March, 2020 the infection was declared as a pandemic by WHO 1 . This out- break resulted in several deaths 3 , which resulted in a global lockdown to curtail the spread of the infection. This led also to shutdown of the world economy which induced an economic shock than the world has ever witnessed 4 . According to 5,6 , the pandemic had adverse effect on small businesses in America. In a report by 7 , several global risks encountered by small and medium businesses were highlighted, of which the economic risk ranged highest. The covid-19 infection being a pandemic took a toll on Africa 8 . The research by 1 highlighted the economic impact of the pandemic on Africa. Nigeria was not an exception as the out-break of covid-19 had a serious economic impact on her economy 9,10 . It is noteworthy “that the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) play a crucial role” as a growth-promoting sector for the development of local, national, and global labour forces through job creation, revenue mobilization and contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) among other indices 11 . About “90 % of firms in developed and developing countries are SMEs,” contributing between 40–60 % to GDP, while „generating “about 40% of the global industrial production and 35% of the world‟s exports” 7 . In Nigeria, the significant role played by the sector is clearly shown in the SMEDAN/NBS 2017 survey report documented by 11 which indicates that the economy is largely engaged by MSMEs as they make up close to 90% of businesses in the country. In addition, this sector accounts for a large percentage of the country‟s workforce, while contributing significantly to the GDP. In a previous survey by SMEDAN/NBS (2013)