The State and Empowerment Policies in Nigeria

Since independence in 1960, successive governments in Nigeria have come up with various poverty alleviation strategies aimed at empowering Nigerians in rural and urban areas. Several of these programmes not withstanding, poverty in Nigeria remains an issue of great concern as over 75 per cent of the citizens live below poverty line.This paper seeks to examine the constructions of empowerment in Nigeria's poverty alleviation programmes with particular focus on the Obasanjo regime's Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP). Methodologically, the paper utilizes predominantly secondary sources of data given its nature. And our findings reveal that poverty subsists in Nigeria despite all counter measures because the programmes and empowerment strategies so far adopted have remained remedial, and have fundamentally failed to address basic issues like enhancing the productive base of the society and youth empowerment. Thus, the paper concludes that poverty alleviation programmes can only make meaning when they seek a radical transformation of the society through qualitative and mass education both in rural and urban centres among other things.