The objectives of the study reflect some of the problems and policy objectives of Nigeria's industrial development planning since the early 1970's, especially the concern to evolve a more balanced industrial output structure and more important, the objective of evolving a more balanced regional pattern of development amongst the country's 19 state units. The study assesses, for the 1964-1980 period, the degree to which the financing patterns of the country's most important industrial finance institution, the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB), have been consistent with these national industrial development objectives. The relevant data was assembled in Nigeria primarily within the first nine months of 1981 and have been analyzed particularly for two points in time, 1974 and 1980, in order to identify relevant trends or changes. There are two basic dimensions and levels to the analyses, a temporal and structural dimension at the national level and a regional/spatial dimension at the state level. In general, the specific analyses feature correlation and concentration indices. Such conceptual notions as divergence/convergence, circular and cumulative causation processes as well as the capital- shortage illusion theses provide the theoretical frame of reference at appropriate stages. The relationships and conclusions elicited from the national-level analyses reflect the dimensions involved. The temporal analysis reveals that: (a) the proportion of Nigerian manufacturing establishments which received NIDB financing increased unsteadily from 5.7 per cent in 1965 to 13.0 per cent in 1980; (b) the employment in the NIDB-financed enterprises or establishments similarly increased from 12.6 per cent of total national manufactural employment in 1965 to 30.2 per cent in 1980; and (c) the proportion of paid-up capital in manufacturing constituted by NIDB total financing rose from 4.5 to 18.8 per cent. The highly significant temporal correlation of 0.906 between paid-up capital in manufacturing and NIDB financing was therefore not surprising. This and other indices warranted the conclusion that national manufacturing has been increasing as the bank's financing increased over the study period. The structural analyses revealed that Nigerian industrial output structure still remained unbalanced by 1980. However, NIDB's financing patterns, especially in the in-between period (1975-1980) showed a clear tendency to favour industry-type groups which were relatively depressed in the early 1970's. Thus, the correlation coefficients for the in-between period were either negative or very low. Thus, the bank's financing patterns reveal an effort in the direction of balancing industrial output structure. The regional (state-level) analyses reveal an incipient trend towards convergence between 1974 and 1980 for manufacturing generally. The regional distribution of the bank's funds shows an even clearer pattern towards inducing convergence by favouring regional units ranking relatively low on national manufacturing in the 1974-1980 period. Nevertheless, the rank-difference analysis of the 1974 and 1980 patterns of Nigerian manufacturing reveals that polarization still continued as the resulting coefficient is not significant and the corresponding null hypothesis of "no difference" has to be upheld. The importance of private-sector industrial investment in diluting NIDB's convergence-prone efforts is pointed out and the need for incentive measures is indicated. A divergent pattern is revealed by the analysis of NIDB's "favouritism" to regional state units and not all states needing "favoured" treatment ( those ranking least on shares of national manufacturing) perform well on all three criteria used. Apparently, NIDB's consistent adherence to its convergence-prone stance into the future, coupled with incentive-based changes in the pattern of private-sector investment would be needed if the regional pattern (which still remains essentially polarized) is to change significantly towards balance. Internal regional efforts would also be important. The establishment by NIDB of "area administration" and liaison offices all over the country between the early 1970's and 1980 further suggests the bank's continuing commitment to furthering, in the industrial sector, the national objective of even development.Applied Science, Faculty ofCommunity and Regional Planning (SCARP), School ofGraduat
