AKSU Journal of Social Sciences (AJSS) Vol. 2, No. 2 (September) 2022 – E. Nathan & K. Endurance, pp. 48-60 48 | P a g e Human Capital Development and Nigeria Economic Performance, 1990-2019 Emmanuel Nathan Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, PMB 071, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria E-mail: nathanemmauel98@yahoo.com & Endurance, Keyamo Department of Banking and Finance, School of Management Science Federal Polytechnic, Ekowe, Bayelsa State, Nigeria firstclasskeyamo@yahoo.com Abstract It is a truism that the expansion of a country's human capital in all of its guises is essential to the nation’s overall progress and development. In point of fact, there is a general agreement that if the developing world is going to achieve major economic growth, the governments of those countries need to make an effort to build up their human capital. This study looks at the link between the growth of human capital and the expansion of the economy in Nigeria between the years 1990 and 2019. Investments in education and healthcare, as well as the average life expectancy of Nigerians, were used as proxies for human capital development, whereas real gross domestic product was used as a measurement of economic growth. The data for the variables were estimated using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation approach. ARDL stands for autoregressive distributed lag. The findings indicate that expenditures made in areas such as education and healthcare have, both in the short and long terms, an effect that is both favourable and materially significant on real GDP. In particular, in the short term, parameter estimates for investments in education (IE) show a value of 5.130166 and a p-value of 0.0197, whereas parameter estimates for investments in health (IH) show a value of 0.595365 and a p-value of 0.0020. Both education and health care investments have long-term coefficients that are 4.235273 and 0.491511, respectively, with p-values that are 0.0273 and 0.0004, respectively. As a result, the paper suggests that additional funding should be allotted to education and healthcare services in Nigeria in order to increase the proportion of skilled workers, the proportion of active workers, the proportion of increased output, and the proportion of increased life expectancy among the population. Keywords: Human capital, life expectancy, economic growth, Nigeria 1. Introduction Due to the fact that no nation can be entirely managed by machines, human people are at the core of all economic operations that take place across the world. It is rather surprising that the majority of economic researchers are of the opinion that the significance of the development of human capital to the expansion of a nation's economy cannot be overstated. According to Paul, Akume, and Etim (2017), the idea of human capital development may be defined as the process of acquiring and increasing the number of people who have the skills, education, and experience that are essential for the socio-economic and political growth of any nation. Consequently, the development of human capital is inextricably tied to investments made in man and his growth as an imaginative and productive individual (Jhingan, 2012).