Al-Hikmah University Journal

This study was prompted due to the low performance of manufacturing sector in Nigeria coupled with fluctuating exchange rate, increasing import, debt. The objective of the study is to examine the nexus between external variables and manufacturing sector performance using data from 1981 to 2021. The result of the study after employing Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) shows that in the long run, debt, import, FDI and  GFCF all have negative impact on the sectors performance while export and external reserve have positive effect on the sectors performance In the long run negative effect was still maintained  with the exception of GFCF. The study therefore recommends that external fund through debt and FDI should be directed towards the development of the sector, import of manufactured goods should be minimized while export should be encouraged.