Role of Government in Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria, a Case Study of Irepodun Local Government
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of The Study
- To assess the impact of poverty alleviation program in Nigeria in particular and to determine why the incidence of unemployment more pronounced among youth in
- To find out the impact of the activity of NAPEP in Kwara and how it affect youth unemployment and empowerment in Kwara.
- To make recommendation with a view to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of NAPEP, thereby alleviating poverty, generating employment and empowerment among youth in Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Review of related Literature
According to United Nations (1995) and World Bank (1990) poverty has various manifestations which include among others: lack of income and food,150 people live in Absolute poverty in Nigeria: an analysis of the future trend productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihood; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate, unsafe and degraded environment and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by lack of participation in decision making in civil, social and cultural life.
Yahie (1993) also reiterates that the causes of poverty include: (i) structural causes that are more permanent and depend on a host of (exogenous)factors such as limited resources, lack of skills, locational disadvantage and other factors that are inherent in the social and political set-up. The disabled, orphans, landless farmers, household headed by female fall into this category; and (ii) the transitional causes that are mainly due to structural adjustment reforms and changes in domestic economic policies that may result in price changes, increased unemployment and so on. National calamities such as drought and man-made disaster such as wars, environmental degradation and so on also induce transitory poverty.
As observed by Obadan (1997) the main factors that cause poverty in include among others: inadequate access to employment opportunities; inadequate physical assets such as land and capital and minimal access by the poor to credit even on a small scale; inadequate access to the means of supporting rural development in poor regions; inadequate access to market where the poor can sell goods and services; low endowment of human capital; destruction of natural resources lending to environmental degradation and reduced productivity; inadequate access to assistance for those living at the margin and those victimised by transitory poverty and lack of participation. That is, the failure to draw the poor into the design of development programmes that affect their lives.
Discussing the consequences of poverty Von Hauff and Kruse (1994) highlighted on three major consequences: consequences for those affected, i.e. for the people affected poverty leads to physical and psychological misery caused by inadequate nourishment, lack of medical care, a lack of basic education and skills and marginalisation in the labour market; (ii) consequences for the national economies of countries affected, arising through the formation of slums in cities, a worsening of ecological problems particularly as a result of predatory exploitation in the agricultural sector and through the failure to use the available human resources social development of the countries affected. That is, mass poverty tends to preserve or reinforce the existing power structures and thus also the privilege of a minority of the population. In some cases, this involves corrupt elites. These privileged minorities in the population are not generally interested in structural changes for the benefit of the poor population. As a consequence, mass poverty tends to inhibit the development of democratic structure and a higher level of anticipation in decision making that affect their lives.
According to Narayan et. al. (2000) most households are crumbling under the weight of poverty. While some households are able to remain intact, many others disintegrate as men, unable to adapt to their failure to earn adequate incomes under harsh economic circumstance, have difficulty accepting that women are becoming the main breadwinners that necessitates a redistribution of income within the households. The result is often alcoholism and domestic violence on the part of men and a breakdown of the family structure Women in contrast, tend to swallow their pride and go out into the streets to dude meaning jobs, or in fact, to do anything it takes to put food on the table for their children and husbands.
Aku, et al (1997) also observed that with mass poverty there tends to be a general loss of confidence in the constituted authority which generates disrespect and renders government policies ineffective. There tends to be political apathy among contending forces and social disillusion with respect to what the societal objectives are and peoples‟ responsibilities towards the attainment of these objectives.
We have earlier argued that Nigeria‟s resource and potentials far out strip her level of development. In other words, we have stated that given the quantum of resources and potentials available in our country, it is surprising to note that high level of poverty still exists among Nigerian population. According to Dunmoye, he maintained that when confronted with this reality, what should attract ones mind should be at least a theoretical plane, the diagnoses that have been postulated for this crisis and the prescriptive remedies (Dunmoye, 1986-22).
BACKGROUND STUDY ON THE POLICY
Youth are one of the greatest assets that any nation can have. Not only are they legitimately regarded as the future leaders; they are, potentially and actually, the greatest investment for a country’s development. They serve as a good measure of the extent to which a country can reproduce as well as sustain itself. The extent of their vitality, responsible conduct, and roles in society is positively correlated with the development of their country.
CHAPTER THREE
THE STATE AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMME
Introduction
The collapse of crude petroleum in the international oil market from early 1980 plunged Nigeria into economic crisis the country had to adopt a structural adjustment programme (SAP) which is marked-friendly to revamp the economic and stop the downward trade, SAP had several policies some of which had negative consequence for poverty reduction, for example privatization, commercialization reduction and removal of subsides had negative consequence on some group of the society. Conscious policy effort by government towards poverty alleviation began in Government therefore designed palliative programmes to take the negative effects of the adjustment and several policies and programmes were put in place for this purpose from 1986, the programmes covered many sectors of the economy and would be treated regime by regime.
The SAP Era
Conscious policy effort by government towards poverty alleviation began in Nigeria during the era of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). The severe economic crisis in Nigeria in the early 1980s worsened the quality of life of most Nigerians.
The government made determined effort to check the crisis through the adoption of SAP. However, the implementation of SAP further worsened the living conditions of many Nigerians especially the poor who were the most vulnerable group. This made the government to design and implement many poverty alleviation programmes between 1986 and 1993. Also under the guided deregulation that spanned the period 1993 to 1998, more poverty reduction programmes were put in place by government. A summary of various anti – poverty programmes which the government of Nigeria had put in place since 1986 is presented below
Murtala/Obasanjo and Poverty Alleviation
The attempt of Murtala/Obasanjo regime to tackle the problem of poverty was made in to directions viz: giving adequate attention to the agricultural sector and reducing government overhead cost by removing redundant staff and avoid financial leakages by punishing corrupt government officials. The regime established the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) program. (Danwanzam 2004:56).
The underlying philosophy behind the programme was to improve the well being of the people through food production and increase income. However this attempt did not yield satisfactory result even though the idea was noble, the implementation was not very successful for example, the target implementors were mainly students on vacation who were not themselves agriculturalists, the students were most interested in the allowances been paid than in practical agriculture consequently the programme had no significant impact on agricultural production instead the country experience increase food importation.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS/ POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND YOUTH EMPOWEMENT IN IREPODUN
Table 4.1 shows that majority of our respondents are male, it therefore represent 131 or 73% of our total sample, however the female respondents from the study area
account for only 48 or 27% of the total sample probably due to lack of education and exposure as such cannot respond to the questionnaire.
Thus the male folks were more accessible and might at most cases engaged in the activities that affect their lives and are mostly the beneficiaries of the programme.
Table 4.2 indicate that 38 or 21% of the respondent fall between the ages of 18-25, 52 or 29% respondent fall between the ages of 25-32 years, 67 or 37% of the respondent fall between 32-48 years and 22 or 12% respondent fall between 48 and above.
It is observed that over 157 or 88% of the respondent are youth which invariably belong to the most active and productive socio economic group in the society.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
Nigeria is blessed with abundant human and material resources but these resources have not been effectively utilized for the benefit of the entire citizens of this country. Real disposable income has declined steeply, malnutrition rates have risen sharply, food production has hardly kept pace with population growth, and the quantity of health and education service have also declined.
Furthermore, despite the large accrued resources from oil over these years, spending by government continued to expand thereby given rise to rapid monetary expansion and excessive government borrowing, the effects of these are high interest rate, hyperinflation rate, and low foreign reserve for the country, the net effect of these economic instability results in low socio/economic indication and the impoverishment of an economic increasing number of Nigerian population.
Successive government since independence embarked on different kinds of programmes to provide basic welfare and social service and to promote agriculture and industry with the hope of ultimately reducing poverty by raising the standard of living of the people, despite these programmes, it has failed to reduce poverty.
This informed the need for this study aimed at assessing the national poverty eradication programme (NAPEP) in terms of its strategies and its impact on the citizenry with special focus on Irepodun LGA of Sabon Gari local government area.
The study made a review of some literature on poverty related issues by some few scholars to give us an insight to issues of poverty and to possibly give some remedies to such problems. The term youth or young people was also defined.
It also explain the concept of government. The study looks at the attributes of poverty which are multidimensional in nature. There are social, cultural and political deprivation. Poverty was defined in terms of low income, inability to provide basic needs of life which include food, clothing and shelter as well as other basic social infrastructure such as transportation, water, electricity, education health and sanitation requirement, poverty could also be absolute or relative this depends on whether the individual or family suffers a total lack of the community.
Conclusions
Poverty eradication has become an issue in the world development agenda, it is a problem that is nonetheless of interest in the developing world, available data on poverty confirmed that poverty is very severe among the people of Nigeria, it is noted that some efforts have been made by previous administrations but despite these the menace have been on the increase.
Some apparent reasons for the failure of previous poverty eradication programmes of the government include the multiplication of these implementing institution or agencies, which allows for gross managerial inefficiency, unhealthy and counter productivity rivalries, poorly conceived project, poor staffing and lack of adequate sense of commitment, lack of congruence between national, corporate and individual interest of implementing agencies, waste of public funds human and material resources etc.
Since the above were possible oversight which might have caused current difficulties there is a need to set future targets which may be achieved through correction of the past with a view to solving current difficulties and more forward to ensure a better future. This necessitates the establishment of the national poverty eradication programme NAPEP as a center-coordinating agency for all poverty reduction efforts of the government.
Recommendations
Having discussed the findings of the study and having drawn some conclusions from the findings, highlighting the problems of the scheme the researcher wishes to offer some suggestions/Recommendations which may help improve the schemes or future similar programmes.
In spite of the concerns past government and the plethora of programmes and policies and poverty reduction, the incidence and scourge of poverty have worsened over the years. the research revealled that not many of the inhabitant had access to be trained and again not all that attended the training had or were opportune to get the loan and lastly the training was to short lo allow for expertise and professionalism. The factors that have constrained the effectiveness of the program and policies have been applying. What are the prospects of achieving the international development goal of reducing by half the incidence of poverty by 2015? This question is pertinent, against the background of the Nigerian economy which is characterized by low economic growth, rapid population growth, mismanagement of available resources and large scale corruption. For NAPEP to make any meaningful improvement there is need for poverty reduction programme to be implemented within the framework of rapid economic growth with equity, control population growth, sound economic management and good governance.
Rapid growth is important for rapid poverty reduction. Therefore, attention must be focused on those macro and micro economic policies and programmes that will ensure the rapid growth of the economy. Economic growth is crucial to conquering poverty because:
- generate income earning generating opportunities for the poor, makes job creation possible, thereby, makes use of the most abundant asset
- Produces additional resources for government to use for social programmes aimed at overcoming poverty and
- Increases the incomes poor people receive as remuneration for their labour.
Growth also must be accompanied by a deliberate policy of redistribution and equity, promoted by participation. In this direction, broad based growth that involves the poor and generate employment is recognized to have a tremendous impact on poverty.
REFERENCES
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- Aluko, S.A. (1975), “Poverty its Remedies In Nigeria” proceeding of the 1974 Annual conference of the Nigerian Economic society
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