This study examined how the external sector affects the performance of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria from 1981 and 2023. The investigator used data on how much the manufacturing sector contributes to the country's total economic output, the exchange rate, foreign direct investments, the country's debt to other countries, how open the country is to international trade, official development aid, and money sent back by people living abroad – migrant remittances inflow. All these data came from reports by Nigeria’s central bank and the World Bank's World Development Indicators. The study used a specific method called Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds testing to analyze the data. The results showed that there is a long-term link between the different factors studied. In the long run, the exchange rate and trade openness have a negative and strong effect on manufacturing sector performance. On the other hand, foreign direct investments, the country's external debt, development aid from other countries, and money sent back by migrants all have a positive and strong effect on the manufacturing sector. In the short term, foreign direct investments, development aid, and migrant remittances inflow have a negative and strong effect on manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, the exchange rate, external debt, and trade openness have a positive and strong effect in the short term. Based on these results, the study concluded that opening up the economy, managing the exchange rate carefully, using external debt and aid in a productive way, and effectively using remittances inflow can help improve the performance of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria. The study also suggested that the government should create a clear policy that balances openness with building local capabilities and ensures that external resources are used well for developing manufacturing sector in Nigeria.