A Sociological Insight on the Factors Responsible for Persistence of Poverty in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s precarious poverty rate remains a worrisome phenomenon begging for multidisciplinary intellectual attention. Despite numerous attempts to stem the rising poverty in Nigeria, high incidences of poverty and poverty-related issues such as hunger and malnutrition have persisted. Thus, Nigeria’s pride as the “Giant of Africa” has turned a subterfuge owing to apparently conflicting economic realities. This has also earned Nigeria an “uncommissioned” title as the “Poverty Capital of the World”. Nigeria’s alignment with international poverty reduction initiatives and huge financial commitments is yet to tackle the poverty menace. Factors which undermine the successes of these initiatives are multidimensional. In this article, attempt is made at exhuming salient factors which hinder the reduction of poverty in Nigeria. The focus is on internal disruptions to poverty reduction since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. The paper leverages the progressive social theory of poverty to advance its argument. Being a theoretical paper, data were sourced from reputable journal articles, authentic media reports, classical literatures, and annual reports of relevant organisations such as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Thereafter, content analysis was used to analyse information extracted from the aforementioned sources. From the findings, the paper links the persistence of poverty in Nigeria to prevailing unfavourable economic, political and social factors which have continued to stagnate the progress in the war against poverty. Recommendations offered include evidence-based policy making; proper disaster management; reorganization of the political structure; and addressing the poor standard of education in the country.