The Department of Economics is one of the five pioneer departments in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Federal University Lokoja. It was established in 2012, and enrolled its pioneer students in November, 2012. A total of 57 students were enrolled into 100 level made up of 33 males and 24 females. The First Head of Department is Professor David Irefin. At the take off stage, the department had twelve academic staff and two non-academic staff. The department runs a Bachelor degree programmes in Economics  

The mission of the Department of Economics at the Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria, is to produce teaching and research of increasing quality. In support of this primary goal, services will be provided internally to the university, and externally to the immediate community, state, nation, and the world. Applied research, which benefits the community and state, would be produced to provide learning by giving experiences to students, to develop research projects of interest to the economic discipline, and to raise funds for the department.

The Department of Economics at the Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria, desires a reputation in the nation and international community for producing high quality graduates, and an associated reputation for high quality teaching that supports student success in competing for jobs and graduate schools in the country and abroad.

The philosophy underlying the academic program of Economics Department at the Federal University Lokoja is to produce a steady flow of competitive graduates of Economics through the development of vigorous modern tradition of learning in new and needed areas of study to equip students with the specialized knowledge of economics so that they can contribute meaningfully to the Nigerian, African and World economy.