Archives of Business Research – Vol.7, No.9 Publication Date: Sep. 25, 2019 DOI: 10.14738/abr.79.7038. Fajana, S. (2019). The Impact of Economic Policy Reforms on Labour and the Nigerian Civil Society: A Stakeholders’ Dialectics. Archives of Business Research, 7(9), 27-44. The Impact of Economic Policy Reforms on Labour and the Nigerian Civil Society: A Stakeholders’ Dialectics Sola Fajana Professor, Department of Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, NIGERIA. ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of current reforms on labour and the civil society in Nigeria. The targeted outcome of the reforms essentially is to reduce poverty and generally improve the lot of the people. It is therefore significant to examine the extent to which the reforms are affecting, positively or negatively, the Nigerian people. This paper therefore provides an overview of the extent to which stakeholders in the Nigerian project are variously affected by current economic reforms, their reactions and the ways in which future policy reforms should be approached. The paper relies on reviews of archival materials and focal interviews of relevant groups to provide insightful information. It was found that reactions have been largely impulsive, lacking coherent future follow-through actions to consolidate initial gains. It is now learnt from lessons of experience that reforms must be appropriate, timely but not impulsive, and well-articulated to achieve the targeted results. It is recommended that policy reforms should be jointly initiated, considered and driven by all constituents to the Nigerian project, to achieve a sense of ownership and high volume commitment. Keywords: economic reforms, labour, civil society, poverty, strategic choice, Nigeria INTRODUCTION Reforms become necessary, expedient or even compulsive when existing structures and processes are visibly malfunctioning and or counterproductive. Oil-rich Nigeria, long hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management, is undertaking some reforms under successive administrations. Nigeria's former military rulers failed to diversify the economy away from its overdependence on the capital- intensive oil sector, which over the years provides 20% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and about 65% of budgetary revenues (Fajana, 2005b, NBS 2019). The largely subsistent agricultural sector has failed to keep up with high population volume of close to 200 million in 2019. With this figure, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country - and the country, once a large net exporter of food, now import food. Following the signing of an IMF stand-by agreement in August 2000, Nigeria received a debt-restructuring deal from the Paris Club and a $1 billion credit from the IMF, both contingent on economic reforms. Nigeria pulled out of its IMF program in April 2002, after failing to meet spending and exchange rate targets, making it ineligible for additional debt forgiveness from the Paris Club. Later, the government began showing the political will to implement the market-oriented reforms urged by the IMF, such as to modernize the banking system, to curb inflation by blocking excessive wage demands, and to resolve regional disputes over the distribution of earnings from the oil industry. In 2003, the government began deregulating fuel prices, announced the privatization of the country's four oil refineries, and instituted the National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy, a domestically designed and run program modelled on the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility for fiscal and monetary management. GDP rose strongly in 2005, based largely on increased oil exports and high global crude prices. In November 2005, Abuja won Paris Club approval for a historic debt-relief deal that by March 2006 should eliminate $30 billion worth