A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF THE IMPACT OF POVERTY REDUCTION PROGRAMMES IN NIGERIA AS A DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
CHAPTER ONE
A. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Liberal scholars see the state as a product of social contract, an
outcome of the escape from the state of nature in which life was said by
Thomas Hobbes to be “nasty, brutish and short.” In order to escape from
anarchy of the state of nature according to these liberal theorists, men
surrendered their power to a single sovereign, hence the social contract and
emergence of the State. On the other hand, the Marxian school sees the State
as a logical aspect of the emergence of class struggle in society. Thus the
State is a product of indigenous social classes in classical capitalist state and
not imposition from without like the colonial State According to Hamza
Alavi, “the essential problem about the state in a neo-colonial society (by
extension colonial societies) stems from the fact that it is not established by
an ascendant native bourgeoisie, but instead by a foreign imperialist
bourgeoisie. Thus the bourgeois revolution in the colony in so far as that
consists of the establishment of a bourgeois state and attendant level and
institutional framework, is an event which took place with the imposition of
colonial rule by the metropolitan bourgeoisie. Additionally the imperialist
bourgeoisie had to create State apparatus through which it can exercise
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domination over all the indigenous social classes in the colony. It was to
bring these features into effect that led to the forceful colonization of Nigeria
and indeed Africa in the name of “civilizing mission.”
The emergence of the colonial state was impacted principally by the
needs of the colonizing power. It was a product of the crises of the industrial
revolution in the homeland of the colonizing powers. Hobson in his book
“Imperialism” (1902) stated that imperialism and by extension colonialism
was a logical consequence of over production and under consumption in the
industrialized world after their industrial revolutions. In the process,
therefore, they needed markets and sources of raw materials to sustain their
industrial development and growth. One has to understand the logic of
colonialism before we can understand the forces and processes that impacted
on the evolution of the Nigerian colonial state. In the advanced capitalist
states that were the colonizing powers in Africa, the state was a creation of an
indigenous home grown dominant class or what is called the bourgeoisie. In
other words, in the advanced capital states or countries, the state is not
disoriented from its dominant class base which is home grown, but that in one
of the backward capitalist social formations like Nigeria, the state is an
imposition by the metropolitan dominant classes in the foreign domineering
companies like the UAC. John Holt, SCOA in Nigeria. When the colonizers
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left and batons of leadership handed over to new leaders in West African
countries, such governments and their leaders were confronted with the
effects of colonization which manifested in structural problems of
disequilibria in education and development as a result of uneven colonial
penetration into West African hinterlands, anomalies ambiguities and
contradictions contained in the various constitutions, thus making governance
difficult.
As the emerging governments lacked capacity and resources to deal
with the problems of development and international relations, their political
leaders became overwhelmed by the severity of hunger disease illiteracy and
poverty afflicting the citizens of countries of West African sub-region. To
worsen matters most of these political leaders soon separated themselves from
the sufferings of the people, engaged themselves in self aggrandizements and
became insensitive to the yearnings of their people for basic economic and
social amenities instead, they frittered away their nations’ wealth in self
enrichment and engaged in worthless development programmes. This state of
affairs led to untold devastation of economics in the region: people had to live
below poverty line, with little food, no shelter for them, and no adequate
medical or educational facilities to give them some hopes. In each case, the
oppressive conditions in which they lived led these people to evolve gradually
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into a class of disgruntled citizens, desperate for change to alleviate their
sufferings. And as the socio-economic conditions of the people of West
Africa continued to nose-dive and worsen, political leaders are now under
pressure to provide welfare for their people as a pre-requisite for sociopolitical stability in their countries. Besides, the new world order places
emphasis on good governance, economic prosperity and social justice. Only
those governments, who provide for the welfare of their citizens amongst
others, are likely to enjoy international co-operation with the world
industrialized nations. No doubt this is the major impetus for political leaders
to be more concerned with the total welfare of their people, especially in the
area of poverty alleviation.
Every society strives to develop its infrastructure both human and
material resources for the well being of its people just like the concept of
industrialization, democracy and modernization, development is one of such
concepts. However, despite its universal currency, appeal and usage, there is
yet to be a consensus on what development precisely means, both
conceptually operationally. (It remains a controversial and value-loaded
concept). Most developing countries have been ravaged by acute poverty of
monumental proportion. The African continent generally and Nigeria in
particular, have been devastated by misrule by some of her leaders, most of
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whom spearheaded the struggle for independence. At that time soon after
independence, they settled down to rule their people as though they were
mere inheritors of the erstwhile colonial authority.
In almost all cases, the military provided the answer by way of coup de
lat by toppling those political overlords Usually such military governments
professed to have come in as corrective regimes that would stay for only brief
periods within which they would put things in order before handing over to
duly elected democratic governments. But because “absolute power corrupts
absolutely” these military governments often ended up entrenching
themselves. In fact, most of them exhibited all the traits of the much vilified
of their predecessors, and even more.
Compared to other sub-regions of Africa, West Africa has been
retrogressing both politically and economically. From its initial postindependence period of relative political stability and abundance of financial
and other resources, the region has become politically unstable and
economically very risky for both foreign and domestic investment. Little
wonder therefore, that international donors and foreign private investors have
shifted their focus from West Africa to other more stable and less risky subregions in the continent.
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West Africa is no more the favourite of international funding agencies.
It has instead become a neglected, dangerous terrain for foreign investors.
Progressively this new position of foreign companies, agencies and
governments has led to capital flight and its attendant problems of low
productivity and operational inefficiency in most of the productive sectors.
This study therefore, examines the concept of development and poverty
as well as critically analyse the various poverty measures put in place by the
government and how these programmes have impacted on the people. The
study takes an overview of the conceptual problems associated with poverty
and those programmes put in place for poverty alleviation such as the
Operation. Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution, Directorate of Food,
Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), Family Economic Advancement
Programme (FEAP), National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), etc.
A fundamental question to ask is, how far have these programmes
impacted positively on the people? It is the objective of this study to find out
the operational deficiencies associated with how best these measures could be
improved upon. But first, why is the researcher interested in this study?
Having been raised in a typical rural setting and from an economically
disadvantaged area the researcher was particularly interested in the research
topic. His quest had always intensified whenever he visited his home town,
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(which is about 42 km from one of the state capitals in South-eastern
Nigeria); and sees his people terribly bedevilled with abject poverty – no
electricity, water and other vital social amenities that would have added
succour to the living standard of the people.
The quest for philosophical explanation of poverty also pre-occupied
the researcher’s mind throughout his 27 years of public service career. As a
military officer, he was fortunate to rise to the rank of a Group Captain. He
was always faced with the challenges of using men and materials to achieve
given tasks in the Nigerian Air force. His various military postings outside
and within the country afforded him the opportunity to come to the grim
reality of the astronomically high poverty level in the Barracks among
military personnel and their families. Throughout his command
appointments, the researcher dissipated his time, energy and attention towards
fashioning out programmes or creating facilities that will alleviate the pains of
his officers, men and their families who were undergoing afflictions in the
hands of poverty.
Also during his military career, the researcher was appointed the
pioneer military administrator of Gombe State one of the newly created states
in the North-east of the country in 1996. Indeed, a rural State! This was an
epoch-making period as the appointment afforded him the opportunity to be at
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the other side of the divide, where he had diverse views of poverty level and
its attendant social problems in the country, particularly Gombe State where
80 percent of the population live in squalor. His tour of duty in Gombe State
afforded him the opportunity to evolve people-oriented policies and
programmes that had direct positive bearing on the lives of the people, and
had not ceased offering suggestions on viable programmes aimed at
alleviating poverty to the State-even after retirement.
It is in this respect therefore that the researcher had to embark upon the
evaluation of poverty alleviation programmes of successive governments in
Nigeria with a view to ascertaining to what extent the programmes have
alleviated poor Nigerians from the menace of poverty; and the success
achieved as a development strategy.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The Nigerian State had been hit by the twin problems of poverty and
under-development. This may be attributed to a number of factors, some of
which are mismanagement of human and material resources, indiscipline, the
lack of political will by the government of the country, beginning from the
post-independence and present day Nigeria. Rather than tackle development
and poverty alleviation in the society, our policy makers or if you like,
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politicians have appeared to have converted leadership positions and public
offices into avenues of squander mania, embezzlement, corruption, money
laundering abroad, to the neglect of the suffering people and development.
As a result of these underdevelopment and poverty in the land, the
country has woken up to witness such anti-social activities and vices like
armed robbery, cultism, drug trafficking, prostitution, child labour and
trafficking, ritual killings, political thuggery and assassinations, etc.
This phenomenon has left the country highly underdeveloped socially,
economically and technologically. This has created a situation of mass
graduate unemployment and other social vices articulated from the foregoing.
Highly skilled trained manpower and infrastructure facilities are either
under-utilised or non-existent. The various government programmes aimed at
eradicating or alleviating poverty have not stood the test of time, as they have
not actually impacted positively on the people.
When General Abacha took power from Shonekan led interim
government in 1993, he introduced other poverty alleviating measures like
Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP). However, upon
coming to power in the new democratic order in 1999, the Obasanjo
administration in an effort to alleviate the suffering and poverty in the land,
introduced the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP).
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However well intentioned, these programmes were hijacked by the
politicians as the philosophy behind the setting up of these programmes were
politicised, thereby undermining the objective of setting up these
programmes. For instance, beneficiaries of these programmes are usually
party faithful, loyalists and family members instead of genuine members of
the society, i.e., the needy.
The distribution of aids by these agencies are also characterized by
victimization, political instability, corruption, lack of acceptability, lack of
commitment and the political will by the government, have been some of the
reasons blamed for the non-performance and sustenance of these measures.
This research therefore, identifies the problems and consequences of
poverty and underdevelopment, on a developing economy like Nigeria thus:
a) Poverty has become a feature of the living conditions and life
situation of the vast majority of Nigerians, i.e. that most
Nigerians live in poverty.
b) In all respects for which comparative data is available, the
poverty situation in Nigeria is only slightly better than what
obtains in sub-Sahara Africa as a whole and generally worse than
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what obtains in low-income economies and as a whole and in
many individual African countries whose GNP per-capita and
natural endowments are much lower than Nigeria’s.
c) Certain sections of the population have been particularly
vulnerable to poverty and continue to bear most of the sufferings
associated with the scourge. Such severely affected groups
include farmers and other rural dwellers, the teeming millions
who operate the informal sector of the urban economy; the
elderly and the aged; women, the disabled, and of course all
those trapped in the remote regions where arable land is scarce
and where draught, floods, environmental degradation, etc
impede economic activity and keep both output and productivity
low continuously.
d) Poverty gives rise to many other serious social problems, some
of which, not only impose enormous economic and social costs
upon the non-poor and society in general, but also threaten the
survival and stability of the society.
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Poverty is definitely not just a problem for the poor, but for the nonpoor as well, indeed for society as a whole. It is important that we look at the
conceptual framework of the study of poverty in this work.
1.3 AIM AND RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY
The research study focuses on the questions being asked by many
Nigerians on how the various poverty alleviation programmes of government,
since 1970s have impacted on the people. The aim is to look at poverty
alleviation measures put in place by successive governments and how these
programmes have impacted positively or negatively, on the people. To
achieve this, the study focuses at poverty programmes from the perspective of
rural people, who constitute over 70% of Nigeria’s population and prescribe
realistic poverty alleviation programmes that would lift the people out of the
abyss of poverty scourge. The various poverty alleviation measures have
been critically examined as models of development and identified with the
target population, (rural and urban dwellers), in terms of what package of
poverty alleviation programme, would benefit the rural masses and the poor
ones in the urban areas.
The research investigated new orientation in the partnership between
policy makers and the masses, whom poverty alleviation programmes are
targeted, with a view to making the conception of such policies to be masses
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or consumer based, in order to ensure that policy package designed by the
masses and included in the government’s package are aimed at solving their
poverty induced problems.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The researcher sought to provide answers to the followings:
a) What impact has the various poverty alleviation programmes of
government made on the lives of rural dwellers since the 1970s?
b) What poverty alleviation programme package would best be
suited and easily implementable at the rural level, where the
majority of Nigerians live?
c) What is the linkage between poverty alleviation programme,
living conditions of the people and rural development? What
other factors affect rural development and rural/urban poverty
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