National Poverty Eradication Programmes in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects

Poverty is one of the forces militating against the social and economic development of Nigeria. The level of poverty in Nigeria is astronomically high and politically embarrassing considering the enormous human and mineral resources the country is endowed with and despite the huge resources successive government have committed to alleviate and or eradicate poverty, it seems no success has been achieved. This paper therefore examines the strategies that have been adopted by the various governments to alleviate poverty in Nigeria. These include, Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revolution, Better Life for Rural Women, Family Economic Advancement Programme. The study reveals among others that, all the poverty alleviation programmes have not been successful due to inadequate funding, lack of proper coordination and commitments, poor design and evaluation of programmes etc. The paper recommends that government should ensure that programmes of poverty eradication are well designed, evaluated and coordinated before they are carried out, fraudulent officials should be prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others handling poverty eradication programmes and so on.