Recent analyses on consumption patterns in Nigeria seem to suggest an upsurge of inequality
that could have offset the poverty-reducing benefits from sustained growth. Increasing
inequality, however, is just one aspect of the whole problem. Our hypothesis is that Nigeria
is also undergoing through a process of economic polarization. Using household-level data on
consumption expenditure from the recent panel component of the General Household Survey,
we explore this possibility by applying methods for full comparative distributional analysis
based on the “relative distribution” (Handcock and Morris, 1998, 1999). This approach,
rather flexible and straightforward in showing findings, allows for a decomposition of the
relative density into changes due to differences in location and changes due to differences
in distributional shape, thus enabling deeper analysis of polarization. Findings confirm our
main hypothesis: in the latest years Nigeria has experienced a significant growth effect, but
also increased distributional polarization, with households moving from the middle of the
distribution into the upper and lower tails. A within-group analysis based on the six geopolitical
zones of the country shows a likewise increase of polarization in the North Central,
the South East, the South South and the South West, while no significant re-distribution
effects are detected for the North East and the North West