Renewed emphasis on the issue of poverty has been rekindled by the
unacceptability of its continued prevalence, particularly in Africa. Poverty
was the theme of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in
Copenhagen, the 1997 United Nations Human Development Report, and
the World Development Report in 2000. This focus on poverty is not
misplaced, given its retarding influence on development efforts. That a
large and increasing proportion of the population in Nigeria is reported to
be poor is not surprising, particularly when viewed against the background
of an ailing economy for almost two decades. Nigeria was ranked
40th among the world’s poorest countries in 1999 and the share of the
country’s population below the poverty line is reported to have increased
from 42.8% in 1992 to 65.6% in 1996 (World Bank, 1999, 2001). The
Federal Office of Statistics (FOS, 1999), using a series of consumer expenditure
surveys over a period of sixteen years, from 1980 to 1996, also
confirms the increasing incidence of poverty in the country. The poverty
level in 1980 was 27.2%, it rose to 46.3% in 1985 and declined to 42.7%
in 1992 and, by 1996, it reached an all time high of 65.6%. In absolute
terms, the population affected was 17.7, 34.7, 39.7 and 67.1 million for
1980, 1985, 1992 and 1996, respectively. Demographic indicators such as
infant and child mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy over the
years have not shown considerable improvement, particularly when compared
with other developing countries within the subregion or other continents.
For example, the life expectancy of 53.2 years estimated for the
country using the 1991 census is low when compared with 64 years for
Indonesia in 1994. Stunting, a measure of the long-term effect of undernutrition,
is reported to have seemingly increased between 1990 and 1999
by 10 percentage points, from 36% to 46% (NPC, 2000). The incidence
of poverty in the country is increasing, despite the various programmes
put in place to ameliorate the situation.