Poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity.

Poverty in Nigeria

Terseer adamu (Review)

Poverty as the United Nations statement says: Poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to; not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living and not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.

Today, although Nigeria should be one of the richest countries in the world with vast oil reserves and a plentiful workforce, yet over 65% of the country's populations live under the poverty line and half of those live in abject poverty. That's 80 million people. Part of this is because of rampant corruption in urban areas and the ongoing failure of repeated programs to address the poverty issue. Many of these programs have been dismissed as mere slogans, with former President Ibrahim Babanginda stating the "Nigerian economy has defied all economic theories." Few funds allocated to poverty campaigns have trickled down to the masses due to inefficiency, lack of knowledge and corruption, leaving the 90% of the rural community to rely on subsistence farming with almost half struggling to make a living on smallholdings barely one hectare in size.

This lack of productivity in the agricultural sector is the root cause of rural poverty in Nigeria , as the oil revenues largely bypass those living and working outside that industry. The failure of agriculture in Nigeria is often blamed on the federal system; with the central government planning ignored or by passed by regional governments. What is clear, however, that as the agriculture industry has declined decade after decade, the ability to provide food for the family and sell on the excess has diminished year by year, fuelling poverty in Nigeria and of course, malnutrition.

Malnutrition affects just under a third of all Nigerian children, one in five of whom die before their fifth birthday, HIV/AIDS affects three out of every hundred citizens and there are nearly ten million orphans in the country out of a total population of 162 million ~ making it the eighth most populous nation in the world. Life expectancy is around 53 years.Unfortunately the land  for farming is suffering from deforestation and soil erosion in the north due to poor farming methods and in the Niger Delta Region, land is becoming increasingly polluted by oil spills and also suffers from regular, heavy flooding. Below are some facts and figures about poverty in Nigeria taken from a range of sources. Please note figures for some years, including recent ones, are not yet available and/or not collated however the figures give an overview of poverty and other related indicators in the country.

Indicator	2000	2005	2008	2009	2010	2011
Population	123.69m	139.82m	150.67m	154.49m	158.42m	162.47m
Life expectancy at birth	46yrs	49yrs	50yrs	51yrs	51yrs	53yrs
% of pop with access to improved water	53%	57%	58%	58%	58%	NA
% of pop with access to improved sanitation	34%	32%	32%	31%	31%	NA
% of pop with access to electricity*						51%
Living in absolute poverty		54.7%			60.9%
Children under 5 underweight			26.7%
Literacy						50.4% (72.1% male) (50.4% female)
Unemployment rate						21% est

Source: http://www.noblemissions.org