Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria: Challenges and Strategies

This article discusses the challenges and strategies for eradicating poverty in Nigeria. It covers the impact of poverty on health, factors influencing SDG 1, and recommendations for poverty reduction. The content also includes cultural, historical, and structural factors that contribute to poverty in Nigeria.

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Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria
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Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria 2
Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria
"Poverty is a state of lack of materials or want. The lack of or possessing little wealth and
in possession of low-quality assets like clothing, shelter or personal means of transport. It also
includes no or poor access to services" (Mader, 2015). Nigeria is among the countries that
experience extreme poverty despite the fact that the country has a lot of natural resources such as
oil. . Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 in Nigeria plans to achieve on ending poverty
through related strategies to all the people in the world. The approaches involve providing good
employment, the access of safe and sustainable water, proper hygiene, proper sustenance and
essential health services for the poor. (Griggs et al., 2013). However, Nigeria is unlikely to
achieve SDG1 target 1 due to increased political instability and terrorism.
The eradication of poverty is one of the most difficult challenges that face a developing
countries. This is because the poor population covers the majority inhabitants (Griggs et al.,
2013.) Nigeria is a sub-Saharan African country in which half of its people live in extreme
poverty. There is proof that indicates Nigeria has an increased number of poverty numbers in
Nigeria (Maigida, Saba & Namkere, 2013). Furthermore, due to the armed conflicts that occurred
in 2014, more than 42,000 people in Nigeria were enforced to leave their homes in search of
protection (Deribe, Negussu, Bosco & Davey 2018). A large proportion of the Nigerian society
has been consumed by an enormous, and persistent poverty which has led to starvation,
illiteracy, famine, infection, joblessness and low life expectancy (Gberevbie, 2014).

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The impact of poverty on health in Nigeria
In Nigeria, the connection between poverty and health care forms a large sequence or
cycle. This occurs where ill-health is caused poverty while it sustains poverty. It is because
individuals in well-developed countries have better access to health care services than
individuals in developing countries (Idris & Agbim, 2015). An individual's health gets worse
when health care services are deferred or not easily acquired. This, in turn, leads to income loss
and an increase in health care which later contributes to poverty. Individuals are unable to obtain
health services and have a high risk of diseases due to lack of material possession and the level
of income (Levesque, Harris & Russell, 2013). Moreover, health status strongly supports both
human development and poverty. Results from a survey discovered that approximately 8.0
percent of the population consulted health care providers due to the illiteracy, reduced services,
and increased prices (Awojobi, 2014).
Factors that influenced the likelihood of Nigeria not achieving SDG 1
Historical factors
Nigeria has experienced several types of disasters such as plane crashes, fire explosions,
flooding, oil pipeline vandalization, road accidents, and building collapsion. The main human
factors that have led to poverty in Nigeria are pipeline vandalization, conflict, and poor
governance (Okoli & Orinya, 2013).

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Oil pipeline outburst is a major incident that occurs in Nigeria and had been a significant
threat to human security (Okoli & Orinya, 2013). The country highly depends on oil exportation
and disregards other sources of income. The Nigerians lose their lives from vandalization due to
fire disaster to make quick money making the repeated attack on pipelines is due to poverty and
greed. For example, in the early 1990s, unemployed youths or poor residents sold fuel to shady
business or unsuspecting motorists by puncturing or from leaking pipes (Okoli & Orinya, 2013).
There has been high rates of conflict in Nigeria. The increase in disputes or crime such as
shootings and gang killings in many countries of the world has dishonored the quality of life.
The poor in cities are mainly susceptible to social problems even though it affects all individuals
from socioeconomic groups. The conflict has a severe economic cost in a case where the limited
proportion of public resources is expected to toughen police implementation, sustenance of
prison occupants, healthcare provision to individuals injured by violence (Idris & Agbim, 2015).
Due to the diverse nature of the poor, it is difficult to associate poverty with violence, crime or
conflict directly. Nevertheless, poverty is closely related to the antagonistic social consequences
of crime such as losing lives at a fruitful age and loss of a large number of properties
(Awojobi,2014).
Poor Governance and Political Instability
Nigeria has experienced high cases of poor governance and Political instability. Awojobi
(2014) argues that poor governance such as political instability, the effectiveness of the
government and poor decision making has linked a country to the inescapable of poverty. Thus
Nigeria's GDP is inversely related to governance displays. This makes it a major hindrance to
growth and decline of poverty in Nigeria (Aworh, 2015).

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Cultural Factors
The idyllic Nigerian emphasizes hard work, equity, collective survival, and self-
reliance.T his resulted in the beginning of mass poverty in Nigeria. Cultural factors that led to
poverty in Nigeria are gender inequality and Religion (Okafor, 2015). Women and men become
poor differently and unequally which makes poverty termed as "gendered." Gender inequality
triggers and extends poverty in a society. Thus measures to eradicate poverty should be
undertaken by the community (Okafor, 2015).
In Nigeria, different societies view production and reproduction of gender. Men play a
significant role in working and earning in most of the world but have a minor role in the family
for reproduction which is unpaid in the family (Makama, 2013) On the other hand; women have
an essential part in the family where their work is unpaid which involves caring for the family.
Generally, across all societies and among poorer households, it is highly evident that women and
girls are more disadvantaged than men and boys (Okafor,2015).
Recent research shows the correlation between religion and real ownership. Some
religious groups experience poverty differently than others (Christiano, Swatos Jr & Kivisto,
2015). Conservative Protestants (CPs) in Nigeria are highly shown at the lowest level of
distribution of wealth mainly financial possession (Christiano et al., 2015). They are church
members who profoundly believe in the traditional religion, accept the Bible as God's word and
emphasize social issues as important in Christian's faith (Wald & Calhoun-Brown, 2014).
Structural Factors

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During the 18th century, the economy of Nigeria encountered many difficulties and
challenges. This led to the decrease of oil prices and the main export of the country which led to
debt burden from the outside countries of (Ayegba, 2015). The main factor that contributes to
poverty in Nigeria is unemployment which creates a stable relationship with poverty. There is
the depletion of the source of income, increased cost of living and decreased living standards
(Ayegba, 2015).In 2007, the World Bank assessed the rate of unemployment in Nigeria as 4.9
percent and ranked it as the 61st across other countries of the world (Ayegba, 2015).
In Nigeria, the government can provide jobs to many graduates in Nigeria but not willing
to give them jobs leaving them wandering in the streets. Employment depends on how connected
an individual is with the leaders of the country. Which in turn leaves many qualified individuals
to suffer (Ayegba, 2015).
Critical Analysis
In order to reduce poverty, some programmes were created and the provision of the
government capitals to eradicate poverty in Nigeria (Farrar et al.,2013).The enterprises that were
required to lessen poverty in Nigeria since the liberation day have borne minimal outcome. The

Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria 7
programs lacked clear policy agendas with no proper guidelines to reduce debt and underwent
political instability, intrusion, discontinued, run with corruption and dislocation of
macroeconomics, political dishonesty, complete kleptomania, and unpleasant robbing .Thus
cannot be (Aworh, 2015).
According to Amuda, Embi, & Babatunde (2014), Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES),
was created to provide unemployed youth to acquire skills, employment, and create wealth. The
Rural Infrastructure Development Scheme (RIDS) was designed to deal with delivering and
developing infrastructure in the rural areas such as transportation, water or electricity. The Social
Welfare Service Scheme (SOWESS) deals with providing essential services to the society such
as quality education, providing essential health services. The Family Support Programme (FSP)
was established for families in the rural areas to deliver health care services, children's well-
being, development of the youth, and to improve the status nutrition (Adebayo & Nassar,2014).
The Better Life Programme (BLP) was established to improve rural women's quality of
life. This is because rural women in Nigeria are highly affected by poverty due to lack of
education required to get employment. The programme harnessed the abilities of women
impacting positively to the economy and improved the quality of life of many women (Amuda et
al., (2014). Moreover, the private sector contributes to the reduction of poverty actively
contributing to employment and advanced incomes and fund to infrastructure development and
deliver proper basic services such as training, wellbeing, and electricity (Amuda et al., 2014),
Recommendations
The government should ensure that put more effort in increasing income generating
activities and hence creating employment. The government should also increase the fight against

Eradication of Poverty in Nigeria 8
corruption so that revenue meant for development is properly utilized. People should also be
trained on how to manage businesses to ensure that they have stable source of income.
In conclusion, Nigeria has been labeled as poor among the Nation committee and has a
general poverty statistics. The reduction of Poverty in Nigeria need to adopt a holistic tactic that
involves both the government and the society. However, when poverty decreases, individual's
health improves as they can be able to access health care services and get trained about health
care. The main aim to reduce debt is to eradicate underemployment and provide maintainable
employment to individuals that are unemployed or underemployed. The paper suggests that the
state of Nigeria should be changed to improve in poverty mitigation. Thus Nigeria can eradicate
poverty by early 2030 because of the strategies and programme that have been created.
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