The ultimate aim of government worldwide is to achieve sustainable improvement in he quality of life its citizenry. Therefore, nation state no matter their size or developmental status strive to achieve some level of consistency in development planning and good governance. However, achieving the goals of governance requires that deliberate plan of action be set out to guide government throughout the process. This plan will detail the vision, focus and steps to be followed such as the overall vision of the government. What is expected to be achieve at the end of the plan period, the direction of public and private investments, the pace and focus of infrastructural and non-infrastructural development etc. while the plan is purely a guide and emendable to review or (re-direction) as dictated by the operating environment, its absence or inconsistency can however spell domm for the sustainable development of a country. The importance of development planning and vision for sustainable development cannot therefore be over-empahsized. Employing the ex-post factode sign, the paper uses existing data form the relevant planning institution to analyse Nigeria's past development plans form colonial period to vision 20,2020 developed in 2009 to establish whether these have assisted in sustainable development in the country ethics, transparency and accountability