This study analytically examines the effect of human capital development on economic growth in Nigeria from 1981 to 2016 using annual time series data. Economic growth proxied by Real gross domestic product (RGDP) and primary school enrolment was sourced from World Bank Development Indicators, (2017) while life expectancy (LEX) and adult literacy rate proxy for literacy rate was sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Report and Statement of Account of various publications. Vector Autoregressive (VAR impulse response and variance forecast error decomposition test were employed to analyse the data. The VAR impulse response test results revealed that, life expectancy (LEX) has positive effect on economic growth (RGDP) while literacy rate (ALR) and primary school enrolment (PSE) has negative effect on economic growth (RGDP) in Nigeria. It is recommended that, relevant policies and programmes such as unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) which are standard welfare programmes for schools should be made in order to increase effectiveness of both literacy rate and primary school enrolment so that they will have positive effect on economic growth. Also, concerted effort in terms of establishing well-equipped medical laboratories, on job training of the existing medical staff so as to increase the level of human capital in terms of life expectancy in Nigeria.