Revisiting Nigeria’s Poverty Alleviation Programmes, By Bello Shehu Maude
AREWA AGENDA – Despite massive progress in reducing poverty in some parts of the world over the past couple of decades, there are still about 689 million people living on less than $1.90 a day. In developing countries, 22% of the world population live in multidimensional poverty. Women represent a majority of the poor in most regions. Also, extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in sub Saharan Africa with almost half of the poor people in the region living in just 5 countries: Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Madagascar (World Bank, 2020)
Poverty According to the World Bank (2001), poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being,” where well-being can be measured by an individual’s possession of income, health, nutrition, education, assets, housing and certain rights in a society, such as freedom of speech. Poverty is also viewed as lack of opportunities, powerlessness and vulnerability. This broadens the definition of poverty to include hunger, lack of shelter, lack of access to proper healthcare, non-education, unemployment, fear for the future, living 1 day at a time, and children’s untimely death due to illnesses brought by unclean water. Almost all the dimensions earlier mentioned exist among the most vulnerable Nigerians nowadays.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with estimated 219 million people and home to one of the world’s black population which is abundantly blessed with human, natural and different mineral resources (including crude oil, gold, iron ore, coal, tin, uranium, phosphates, and limestone). As at 2021, OPEC reported that the country has recorded 36,910 Million barrels of proven oil reserves, and 5,750 billion cubic metres of proven natural gas. Nigeria is among the largest exporter of crude oil in Africa, listed among top 15 largest in the world and has a vast land of 923,768 km2, of which about 70 million hectares are farmlands. Paradoxically, according to the data from the World Poverty Clock checked on 19th February, 2020, over 70 million of its population lives in extreme poverty.
Nigeria, being one of the countries in sub Saharan Africa with high poverty rate, designed and implemented several policies and programmes as part of its commitment to meet the special needs of the poor and improve the living standards of its citizens, several programmes were introduced and implemented at different periods by different governments such as: Operation Feed the Nation of 1977; Green Revolution of 1980; Directorate of Foods, Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI); National Directorate for Employment (NDE); Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP); National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) SURE-P up to the N-Power programme among others.
Some Developmental Scholars analysed and identified these Poverty Programmes in Nigeria based on three phases, which are Pre SAP era, SAP era and Democratic Era.
Pre SAP ERA
Poverty reduction was never the direct focus of development planning and management during Pre- SAP era. Government only showed concern for poverty reduction indirectly. In this era, Nigeria had prepared and executed four national development plans as follows: First National Development Plan 1962-68, Second National Development Plan 1970-74, Third National development Plan 1975-80 and the Fourth National Development Plan 1981-85 whereby many of the programmes put in place by the government (either wholly or in association with international agencies) had positive effects on poverty reduction although the target population for some of the programmes was not specified explicitly as poor people or communities (Onyenwigwe, 2009; Iheanacho, 2014 cited in Kolawale, 2017).
Some of these programmes were farm production enhancement which tended to facilitate and support farmers in their production, among them was the Farm Settlement Scheme (FSS) of the old Western region of Nigeria which intended to put more lands under farming by engaging young school leavers in a specified area of land, making farming their career thereby preventing them from moving to the urban areas in search of white collar jobs.
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In the mid-70s, the Federal Military Government of Nigeria became more involved in initiating Poverty reduction programmes which includes: The National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP); the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) and the Green Revolution Programme (GRP). These were intended to improve the food situation in the country after the debilitating civil war. NAFPP was a general-purpose food production programme, intended to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food production and mobilization of extension workers. OFN was an awareness programme intended to educate people generally to engage in food production around their homes, schools and on any available piece of land. GRP was initiated as a comprehensive development programme designed to revolutionise not only food production but also export tree crops production. Several instruments were considered in implementing GRP, but the most significant in terms of scope and financial commitment was harnessing of the water of Nigeria’s river basin for food production. This led to Nigeria’s River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs). In addition to the activities of RBDAs, the Agricultural Development Project (ADPs) formerly known as Integrated Agricultural Development Projects (IADP) was established in 1974 in the North East (Funtua), North west (Gusau) and North Central (Gombe) states as pilot schemes which became a major initiative for supporting the agricultural sector and rural economy of the nation.
Other programmes during this era included the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS), the Rural Electrification Scheme (RES), the Rural Banking Programme (RBP), Free and Compulsory Primary Education (FCPE) set up in 1977, Green Revolution established in 1980, and Low Cost Housing Scheme. Most of these programmes were designed to take care of such objectives as employment generation, enhancing agricultural output and income, and stemming the tide of rural – urban migration.
These programmes made some laudable impacts; they enhanced the quality of life of many Nigerians. Despite these, they could not be sustained due to lack of political will and commitment, policy instability and insufficient involvement of the beneficiaries in these programmes (Kolawale, 2021)
Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) Era
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are conditions or performance clauses, in the form of policies or structural change requirements, which serve as prerequisites for eligibility to receive loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (Oyeyinka, 2017)
Conscious policy effort by government towards poverty alleviation began in Nigeria during the era of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). The severe economic crisis in Nigeria in the early 1980s worsened the quality of life of most Nigerians. The government made determined effort to check the crisis through the adoption of SAP.
However, the implementation of SAP further worsened the living conditions of many Nigerians especially the poor who were the most vulnerable group. Many shops and factories closed down and workers were laid off. This made the government to design and implement many poverty alleviation programmes between 1986 and 1993.
Also, under the guided deregulation that spanned the period of 1993 to 1998, more poverty reduction programmes were put in place by the then military government.
Some of the programmes under this era included Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), National Directorate of Employment (NDE), People’s Bank of Nigeria (PBN), Community Banks (CB), Better Life for Rural Women Programme (BLP) which metamorphosed into Family Support Programme (FSP) in 1994 established to alleviate poverty and eliminate ignorance among rural people, particularly women. Another variant of BLP and FSP had been designed by the Federal Government which was called Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP) designed specifically for locally based producers of goods and services and potential entrepreneurs in the cottage industries in order to improve the living standard of the low-income groups. By stimulating appropriate economic activities in the various wards of each local government area in the country. National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA), the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADP), and the Strategic Grains Reserves Programmes (SGRP), the Primary Health Care Scheme (PHCS) and the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme were also among the programmes designed and implemented during this era.
By 1999, all these previously established programmes were consolidated into the Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs). All these old and new programmes follow the same approach of micro credit and promotion of rural-based Small Scale Enterprises.
The programmes were not well thought-out and the various programme activities not planned for. They were long on propaganda (if not noise-making) but short of substance. Sustainability was not built into their planning; hence programme names changed anytime a new government came on board. Institutions created to manage the programme only benefitted the managers of the programme. The programmes were deceptive rather than empower rural households to develop self-sustaining enterprise as they thrust on them a dependency syndrome with a ―beggar mentality that did not prepare the rural people to have the needed market and political power to demand for and get their entitlements from government (Akinyosoye, 2005; Iwuchukwu and Igbokwe, 2012 cited in Kolawale, 2021).
Democratic Era (Post-SAP)
During the democratic era, governments also designed and implemented various programmes and strategies to alleviate poverty. The efforts included considerable institutional changes such as the merging of previously disparate but complementary development organizations. For instance, the Bank of Industry (BOI) was constituted in 2000 to serve as the primary lending financial institution for industries in Nigeria. It was created from the merging of the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB), and Nigerian Bank for Commerce and Industry (NBCI).
In the agricultural sector, the Nigerian Agricultural, Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) was set up from the Family Economic Advancement Program (FEAP), the Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank, and the People’s Bank, with the mandate to provide funds for industrial inputs.
National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) and Seven Point Agenda, Sure-P and N-SIP were among the strategies initiated to reduce the high rate of poverty during this era.
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Bello Shehu Maude is a Public Policy Analyst, Developmental Journalist and SDG Ambassador. He writes from Kano.
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of Young writers/journalist from Northern Nigeria towards Peaceful Coexistence and National Development through positive narratives
