The Paradox of Poverty in Nigeria: What an Irony

Abstract

Poverty is an enemy to man. It not only humiliates, it dehumanizes its victims. The paper examines why the country, Nigeria is rich and the people are poor. In doing this, the paper examines poverty alleviation programmes hitherto embarked upon by the previous governments and came up with the conclusion that these policies failed in alleviating poverty in Nigeria. Rather than alleviate poverty in the country, money meant for these programmes went into the pockets of friends and cronies. The reason being that the poor people were never involved in evolving these programmes. The programmes were designed from the top as a pill and swallowed by the poor at the bottom. The root cause of this is corruption. The paper therefore suggests that government should intensify efforts at curbing corruption. Additionally, the poor who were never considered when alleviation programmes were being designed should not only be consulted, they should be recruited in executing these programmes.

Keywords:Poverty, Poverty-Alleviation, Macro-Economics, Globalization, Inequality