In this paper, we empirically examine the relationship between two indicators of
small business performance - government intervention and access to commercial credit.
After carrying out a cross- sectional survey as the blue print for data collection and analysing
the data so collected with the aid of the Pearson correlation and t-statistic, the study shows
that there is a positive relationship between the performance of small businesses and the
intervention of government in the small business place. It was also discovered that, there is
no positive relationship between performance of small businesses and access to credit. This
result suggests that, making government intervention in the small business place more effective
rather than simply depending on sources of finance for small businesses may be beneficial to
good performance of small businesses, which invariably will serve as the driving force of
economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction in developing countries like Nigeri
