CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Poverty is a global phenomenon which affects nations and people differently, it afflicts people in various depths and levels at different times and phases of existence. There is no nation that is absolutely free from poverty. Third world countries have the highest level of poverty and as well the lowest level of socio-economic development. Poverty as a state where an individual is not able to cater adequately for his/her basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, is unable to meet social and economic obligations, lacks gainful employment, skills, assets and has limited access to social and economic infrastructure such as education, health, portable water and sanitation (CBN 1999:1).

Poverty leaves vulnerable rudeness, humiliation and inhumane treatment by both private and public agents of the nation from whom they seek help. They lack multiple resources that subject them to hunger, physical deprivation and exploitation (World Bank 2000:1). In Nigeria, various policy measures has been put in place by various governments for poverty alleviation such as Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution, Better life for rural women (BLP),

Directorate for Food and Rural infrastructures (DFFRI), Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) gave hope to the poor and move towards some sort of wealth creation. A fundamental question to ask is how far having these programmes impacted positively on the poor?

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The Nigerian state has been hit by the twin problems of poverty and underdevelopment. This may be attributed to a number of factors, some of which are mismanagement of human and material resources, indiscipline, lack of political will by the government from post independence to present day Nigeria. Instead of tackling poverty alleviation in the society, our policy makers and leaders have converted their positions into avenues of squandamania, embezzlement, corruption, money laundering to the neglect of the suffering people.

The problem of poverty in Nigeria has woken up to witness anti-social activities like armed robbery, cultism, drug trafficking, prostitution, child trafficking, ritual killings, political thuggery and assassinations. This phenomenon has created mass graduate unemployment and social vices articulated from the foregoing, the highly skilled trained manpower and infrastructure facilities are underutilized. Despite the colossal amount of resources committed to poverty eradication programmes in Nigeria, it aggravates more and more people fall into the poverty region instead of escaping.