Regimes and Poverty Alleviation Programmes In Nigeria Since 1980s

In postcolonial Nigeria, poverty alleviation is a thematic issue in governance that has received attention in varied forms. This paper thus examines how party politics and governance drive the forms of poverty alleviation plans in postcolonial Nigeria. The narratives questioned the multidimensional interests that defined poverty alleviation policies. Ultimately, the paper explains the perspective of inequality in poverty policy implementation. It articulated the developmental interventions structured and institutionalised within the Nigerian state. This paper historicises the complicated realities in the dissemination of poverty alleviation programmes in Nigeria. It positions the practice of alleviating poverty as a political process influenced by interests and disinterests of stakeholders. In other words, the paper emphasised the trajectories in which the implementation of poverty alleviation became politicised. The sub-sections focused on features of poverty, state-driven poverty alleviation, 1989-1998, citizen-desired poverty alleviation and state intervention 1989-1998, state-driven poverty alleviation 1999-2007 and paradoxes of poverty alleviation 1999-2007. Based on the historical method, the analysis interrogated the content and contexts in newspaper accounts as well as relevant books and journals