Rural development and poverty eradication in Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria today, poverty is clearly one of the most profound problems being grappled with and contributing substantially to the erosion and undermining of the foundations of peaceful co-existence and stable national development. It is increasing, and deepening by the day engulfing an overwhelming majority of Nigeria’s population. Poverty seems to have defied solutions in spite of the massive investment of resources and targeted programmes to deal with it, hence it has become severe, acute and chronic, contributing significantly to underdevelopment, generalized insecurity and instability in the country. The failure to achieve the desired poverty eradication by successive targeted programmes is largely due to the sectoral scope of such programmes, without giving the problems a holistic approach. It is in recognition of the ineffectiveness of the sectoral approach to poverty eradication and the growing discontent and social injustice among the rural people of Nigeria who constitute the vast majority of the population of this country that informed the decision to write this paper. The paper is anchored on the belief that to achieve the important objective of eradicating poverty in Nigeria, actions need to be taken on several fronts simultaneously in an integrated manner to break the vicious circle of poverty and underdevelopment. This approach is not negotiable if the issue and challenges of poverty eradication in Nigeria must be addressed sustainably and effectively.

Keywords: Rural, development, poverty, insecurity, instability