This study investigates the Ease of Doing Business – economic growth nexus in Nigeria: “The institutional quality”, over the period 1996–2024. The primary objective is to examine how improvements in the business environment—particularly through enhanced private-sector credit access and corporate activity—interact with institutional quality (proxied by Government Effectiveness) to influence economic growth, as measured by Nominal Gross Domestic Product (NGDP). The study utilizes a time-series dataset of 29 annual observations sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistical Bulletin, whereas, data on corporate income tax (CIT) and institutional quality (IQ) are taken from Federal Inland Revenue Service and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) respectively. Pearson correlation analysis, Descriptive statistics and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression are employed for data analysis. All growth-related variables – Nominal GDP (NGDP); credit to private sector (CPS); corporate income tax (CIT); monetary policy rate (MPR); total savings (TS) are transformed into natural logarithms to interpret coefficients as elasticity, while Government Effectiveness (GE) is included in its original scale. Correlation analysis identifies a strong private-sector growth core: NGDP exhibits very strong positive associations with CPS and CIT. Descriptive statistics reveal high nominal volatility and positive skewness in NGDP, Credit to Private Sector, Company Income Tax, and Total Savings, reflecting structural shifts driven by currency devaluation, inflation, and banking reforms. The finding of OLS model CPS emerges as the dominant driver implying that credit to private sector raises NGDP significantly, whereas CIT contributes marginally positively to the NGDP. While TS shows a significant negative impact on NGDP likely capturing precautionary savings behavior. MPR and GE are statistically insignificant, highlighting weak monetary policy transmission and limited direct influence of institutional quality on growth. The findings indicate that Nigeria’s nominal economic growth over the study period has been predominantly private-sector led, driven by credit expansion and corporate profitability, despite persistently low institutional quality and ineffective monetary policy channels. Hence, the recommendations offers deepening financial sector reforms to sustain and improve credit allocation efficiency, strengthening institutional frameworks through anti-corruption measures, regulatory predictability, and civil service modernization to enhance government effectiveness, and improving savings mobilization mechanisms to convert accumulated savings into productive investment. These steps are essential for translating nominal gains into sustainable, inclusive real economic growth. 

Keywords: Ease of Doing Business, Economic Growth, OLS method, Descriptive Statistic, Correlation Analysis.