Project Description

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The pride of any government is the attainment of higher value level of development in such a way that its citizens would derive natural attachment to governance. However, for a nation to be in a phase of development there must be some pre-requisites, which include socio-political and economic stability. The gap between the developed and the developing countries is not static or narrow but is continually widening. A large majority of the world’s population in developing world lives in a state of poverty. The problem of urban population, rural stagnation, unemployment and growing inequalities continue to face less developed countries, which Nigeria belongs. Hope of accelerated developmentsis difficult to realize. This gloomy situation is of great concern to stake holders and the concerned citizenry. Nigeria has not been able to engender meaningful development inspite of her huge resources endowment. This has greatly affected her quest to improved quality of life of her citizens.

On the main issues in development,debates are on how to tackle rural poverty. The constraints to developing the rural area as well as the problems of this critical sector have come to loam very large for over four decades in Nigeria. All attempts to put the rural areas on course of development have failed.Conditions have continued to worsen and poverty has become a major issue in the rural areas especiallyAbohMbaise local government area in spite of their potentials. Therefore, a major concern to government’s multilateral institutions and policy makers in different countries is to identify appropriate strategy for poverty alleviation especially in the rural areas.

Prior to 1996, about 46.3% of Nigeria’s population was, according to the data of the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS), living below the national poverty level (Olatunji, 2006). The poverty index increased to over 65.6% by 1996 and according to the estimate of UNDP, over 70% of Nigerians were by 2002 living below the poverty level (UNDP, 2008).

The picture of growing poverty in Nigeria can easily be demonstrated by reference to the facts. For example, Nigeria per-capital income was $1151.71 in 1976. It fell to $835.67 in 1994 and fell below $200 in 1996, the population of absolute poor rose from 35 million in 1992 to 44 million in 1995, the percentage of people living below poverty line rose from 34% in 1992 to 82% in 1998 (Abubakar, 1999). By 1995 Nigeria was placed among the 17 poorest countries in the world (Ashton, 1995), and by 1996 the country was 1472^nd on the HDI and 13^thpoorest nation in the world (Ike, 1996). All other indicators of poverty point towards deterioration of the poverty situation in Nigeria. For example, life expectancy at birth which was 54 years in 1990, and 52 years in 1992 had became 47.6 years in 1996, infant mortality which was 85 per 1000 in 1990 researched 195 per 1000 in 1995 (Anikogbo, 1997).

These facts may have led the World Bank to declare that in “1995 welfare was probably lower and poverty higher than in the pre-oil boom year of early 1970s”(World Bank, 1997:67), and the growing inequality which was brought about by the activities mentioned earlier, many have also led the World Bank to caption its 1996 report on Nigeria as “Nigeria: poverty in the midst of plenty” (World Bank 1996). One can conveniently describe Nigeria today as a very rich country of very few extremely rich people and very many extremely poor people.

These frightening poverty assessment data which are also practically manifested on the rural area among the vast majority of the populace must have informed the persistent calls of concerned opinion leaders and pressure group including business, political, professional, academic, labour , traditional and religious leaders on the government to eradicate poverty within the socio-economic system, the weight and frequency as well as the canvassed justification for these calls notwithstanding, government at every level appears not to be adequately responsive or out of meaningful ideas for sustainable developmental strategy.

Based on the above analysis, this study focuses on the causes of increasing Nigeria’s poverty scourge, paying a particular attention to the rural communities of AbohMbaise local government area with a view to possibly proffering effective, realistic and applicable solution.

 

 

1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Any nation that neglects the development and empowerment of the rural communities should not expect meaningful development. Alegbeleye and Aina (1985:13) state that “the third world countries have recently come to realize that unless the rural areas are well developed, hardly would any meaningful development occur in these countries”. Okey (2003:1) also says that “Rural development is a basis for economic development and information is an important ingredient in the development process”.

In rural areas, where 85 percent of Nigeria’s poor people reside, the major cause of poverty has been identified as the use of outmoded and inefficient systems in agriculture and craft. Other contributory factors to low income in the rural areas of Nigeria, according to Abubakar (1975), include inadequate infrastructure, lack of credit and marketing facilities, unfavourable rural institutions especially in respect of  land tenure’ ignorance, culture and institutional rigidities. Williams (1984), has also identified lack of viable nonfarm employment opportunities in the rural sector as a major source of rural poverty, he argues that such situation leads to over-crowding on the land and under employment of labour. It should also be added that even though alternative occupations, like traditional craft and petty trading to exist in most villages, yet investigations have shown that incomes realized from these occupations are as low as those realized from subsistent farming (Williams 1984).

Burkey (1993), has listed quite impressive number of factors that positively correlate with poverty, they include; lack of modernization tendencies, physical limitations, laziness, illiteracy, bureaucratic stiffing, dependency of third world countries and exploitation by the local elites. A close examination of the factors reveals that some are exogenously caused while others like illiteracy and laziness are endogenously caused. One factor that has speedily fueled poverty is the distribution of income. The distortional distribution of income is not only a problem among the rural people, but among the population of the whole nation (Buton, 1987). Distribution of income could be viewed from two perspectives, the fiscal distribution of income and provision of both social and economic infrastructure (Adawo, 2010). In Nigeria, the practice of relative wage income hypothesis , where jobs are evaluated on the basis of job content and wages are paid accordingly is not applicable, rather government income at all levels are shared among politicians, political cohorts and dubious contractors (Abubakar, 1999), the fact that socio-economic infrastructures are not provided endemically spread poverty in Nigeria.

Conventional explanation of the causes of poverty in Nigeria in the existing literature ranged from lack of capital, low-level technology, illiteracy, population to economic mismanagement. All these causative factors are applicable to all third world countries (Robertson 1980).

However, the above analysis merely focus on the general causes of poverty in rural areas, hence did not provide a satisfactory bases for the generalization of the causes of poverty in Local government which is our focus here, again they made no mention of the effect of unavailability of good health care services and lack of family planning by the rural dwellers. Therefore, it is this noticeable gap in the literature that this study seeks to fill using the following research questions as a guide.

 

1. Does lack of family planning by rural dwellers has any relationship with the increasing poverty problem in AbohMbaise?
2. Does Inaccessibility of good health care services in the rural areas have a noticeable relationship with the prevailing scourge in AbohMbaise?
3. Does deprivation of local government autonomy lead to rural poverty in AbohMbaise?

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Following the traditional way of explaining poverty, Nigerian scholars have come out with different explanations. For example, Agbu(1997), attributes poverty in Nigeria to poor technology and argued forcefully that until technology is properly addressed through well coordinated strategies, any effort at poverty to harsh natural environment, an illiterate population growth, and bad government, evil of colonialism and greed of the elites, will continue to be an illusion. Okojie (1997) blames the poor education for the poor and their children as the cause of poverty in Nigeria and argues that, unless education is given top priority, poverty will remain.

Therefore, the broad objective of this study is to examine the root causes of rural poverty in Nigeria, while the specific objectives are:

1. To assess whether lack of family planning by the rural dwellers have any relationship with the poverty problem in AbohMbaise local government area.
2. To examine if there is a significant relationship between inaccessibility to good health care service and prevailing rural poverty in AbohMbaise local government area.
3. To ascertain if the national underdevelopment is as a result of rural poverty.

 

 

1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY:

One serious draw-back in government’s implementation of poverty reduction programme is the unwillingness of government to clearly identify personally who are going to benefit from such programmes and policies, and whether they (the poor) appreciate such programmes and policies. There is benefit Capture syndrome, where intended benefits are captured by politicians, and rent-seeking bureaucrats(Ekong 1997, Adawo 1999). Axiomatically, the rich is the burden of the poor and at all times the rich will either consciously or unconsciously circumvent any programmes that may lead to change in status quo, since money is accorded undue adoration in Nigeria(Adawo, 2003), and economic theory postulate that, the marginal utility of money is always positive, therefore assessors to public fund engaged in mindless accumulation at the unimaginable expense of the poor.

These are always possible because most of the programmes were implemented top-down. The opinions of the targeted beneficiaries were not sought. Nobody bordered to know what their problems were, how they wish such problems to be solved. It is naïve to think that the rural dwellers lack wisdom.

Therefore, the theoretical significance of this study is that it will contribute to the already existing knowledge about the cause of rural poverty in Nigeria by identifying some of those factors that fuels poverty, inorder to deal with them directly and avoid the benefit capture syndrome and rent seekers who are always associated with top-bottom policy implementation.

Practically, It’s hoped that this study will guide the policy makers, state and federal governments to make informed choices on the poverty reduction programmes and implementation strategies that is result oriented, policies that would ensure that this endemic poverty scourge is reduced to barest minimum in an age that is becoming difficult to understand and therefore more in need of serious thought.

1.5. LITERATURE REVIEW:

The essence of literature review is to simplify the work of the researcher by making him aware of the existing work and reveal the experiences of and opinions of others in the area of study. The scope of this research work is specifically on the causes of rural poverty and the challenges of local government in national development, using AbohMbaise as a case study.

An attempt to get to the root cause of rural poverty in Nigeria with a particular reference to AbohMbaise local government area, the literature will be arranged and presented in two forms, micro and macro perspectives.

From the micro analysis, poverty is seen as arising largely from individual disposition, what some sociologists, Buton et al (1987) term the product of deficient personal character and morality. Hence Abdullahi, (1993) stated that poverty depend on a host of factors such as limited productive resources, lack of skill for gainful employment, location disadvantages or endemic social political and cultural factors. According to Robertson (1980), the causes of poverty in some countries have ranged from lack of capital, low-level technology and huge economic mismanagement. All this causative factors are applicable to Nigeria. Burkey (1993) has listed quite impressive number of factors that positively correlates with poverty.They include; lack of modernization tendencies, physical limitations, laziness, illiteracy, lack of transport, bureaucratic stiffing, dependency of the third world countries and exploitation by the local elites. A thorough analysis of these factors reveals that some are exogenously caused, while others like illiteracy and laziness are endogenously caused. One factor that has speedily fueled poverty is the distribution of income. The distortional distribution of income is not only a problem among rural poor, but among Nigerian population(Buton, 1987). Distribution of income could be viewed from two angles: The fiscal distribution of income and provision of both social and economic infrastructure (Adawo, 2010). In Nigeria, the practice of relative wage income hypothesis, where jobs are evaluated on basis of job content and wages are paid accordingly is not applicable, rather governmental income at all levels are shared among politicians, political cohorts and dubious contractors, (Abubakar, 1999: 20). The fact that infrastructures are not provided as a result that endemically spread poverty.

In rural areas, where 85 percent of Nigeria’s poor people reside,Helleiner (1994) has attributed the major cause of poverty as the use of outmoded and inefficient systems in agriculture and craft. Other contributory factors to low income in the rural areas of Nigeria, according to Abubakar (1975), include inadequate infrastructure, lack of credit and marketing facilities, unfavourable rural institutions especially in respect of land tenure system, ignorance, culture and institutional rigidities. Williams (1984), has also identified lack of viable nonfarm employment opportunities in the rural sector as a major source of rural poverty, he argues that such situation leads to over-crowding on the land and under employment of labour. It should also be added that even though alternative occupations, like traditional craft and petty trading do exist in most villages, yet investigations have shown that incomes realized from these occupations are as low as those realized from subsistent farming (Williams 1984).

The limitation of farming season, the unreliability of the climate especially as it concern annual and erraticdistribution of rainfall within the farming season, the underutilization of labour resources during the farming season resulting from inability of many poor farmers to farm on scale which matches their labour resources, and rudimentary nature of thesystem of farm-labour employment ; the dire shortage of working capital, which severely limits the scales and productiveness of farming especially where cultivation of manure farmland is the preferred agronomic system (Hill,1992: 11).

In addition to the dearth of remunerative non –farming occupation during the dry season, Hill (1992) identify the following additional factors as key causes of general poverty particularly in the rural Hausa land:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abubakar (2000) noted that the unfavourable physical environmental conditions, such as desertification in the north, water hyacinth in inland water-ways and oil spillage in the Niger-Delta, have contributed to the low economic fortune of the inhabitants of those areas of the country, thereby aggravating their level of poverty.He also argued that 35% of the country’s land mass, particularly in the North has come under serious desert encroachment.

The cause of rural poverty in Nigeria have been attributed to different things by different scholars, for example, Agbu (1997), attributes poverty in Nigeria to poor technology and argued forcefully that until technology is properly addressed through well coordinated strategies any effort at poverty reduction will continue to be an illusion. Okinmadewa, (1997) blames poor access of the poor to social and infrastructure as the cause of poverty. O’ Conner, (1996) attributes poverty to hash natural environment, evil of colonialism and greed of the elites.Okojie (1997) blames poor education for the poor and their children as the cause of poverty in Nigeria and argues that unless education is given top priority poverty will remain. Aigbokhan, (1997) attributes poverty to the cut in government spending on education, retrenchment of workers in the public sector and rapid devaluation of the Nigerian currency. Olaniyan, (1997) sees fiscal indiscipline as the main cause of poverty in Nigeria. Sagbamah, (1997)put the blame on low human development and argues that unless we improve that through education, water supply, sanitary facilities and food subsidy, it is impossible to reduce poverty in Nigeria. Similar view was expressed by Achime and Afemikeh (1992) and Obadam (1997). Ukah (1997), argues that poverty in Nigeria is caused more by food insecurity than any other thing else and the best way out of poverty in Nigeria is through self-reliance on food production. The Federal Office of Statistics (FOS 1996), attribute poverty in Nigeria to variety of factors including inadequate access to employment opportunities, inadequate access to assets such as land capital, neglect of rural areas in favour of urban areas, inadequate access to market, inadequate access to education, sanitation and water services, constant destruction of natural resources, endowment and non-participation of the poor in the design of the development programme that are thought to be beneficial to them.

According to Lewis (1966), the rural dwellers are poor because of their strong sense of fatalism, helplessness and inferiority. They are oriented to present and do not plan for the future. Lewis  (1996), Buton et al (1987) and Henslin (1996) posited that rural dwellers possess certain cultural features which make them off from the rest of the society and which are passed on from the rest of the society and which are passed from one generation to another, inhibiting those expose to them from taking opportunities to escape from poverty. From this theoretical position, poverty is seen as largely resulting from individual dispositions in order words, the poor are poor because their way of life is different  and as such any alteration in this condition had to be achieved through their own effort.This suggests that the individual’s destiny lies in his own hands.

From the macro perspective, poverty is seen as a result of social problem to be handled by systematic government activities and provision of welfare services, even if an individual desires a change in his position or status, institutionalized constraints within the socio-economic and political environment may hinder him from realizing this ambition. Nigerian government provides little or no possibility for upward social mobility to allow the rural poor to escape from their poverty situation (Nobbs, 1984). In this sense, the cause of poverty is attributed to social problem, a macro political and economic issue that directs attention to the politics of poverty.

The problem of state ideology is closely related to the discourse on the politics of poverty. Nigeria is a capitalist nation and one of the evils of capitalism is that it polarizes the society into two camps; the rich and the poor. Marx, (1963) argued that poverty is largely a problem arising from the explanative relationship between the workers and the owners of the means of production. The major cause of poverty in Nigeria therefore is because the government under capitalist influence did not provide enough welfare policies and social programmes to takecare of the rural dwellers (Hills, 1982). The Nigerian economy has not been in good shape in the last three to four decades, according to Obadan (1997), the introduction of the structural adjustment programme( SAP)in 1986 aggravated the incidence of poverty in Nigeria. He argues that SAP caused massive layoff, reduction in capacity utilization, closure of industries, hyperinflation rates, high interest rate and unstable foreign exchange rates which caused massive outcry not only in the rural areas but also in urban Nigeria. With SAP, the middle class (that is those living above poverty level) became marginalized with the lower class thereby increasing the percentage of the poor people in Nigeria (Aliyu, 1999).

Furthermore, Nigeria’s gross Domestic Project (GDP) per capital is low with the purchasing power on the decline with inflationary trends moving slowly and increasing income inequality, (Fadayomi et al, 1988). According to Aliyu (1999), by 1993, the GDP per capital for Nigeria was #1,069 and it dropped to #1,049 by 1996. The inflation rate by 1992 was 45 percent, 57 percent in 1993 and 73 percent in 1995 and dropped to 29 percent in 1996. Due to dividing fortunes in the country’s earning from the oil sector as a result of instability of the international oil market and general global recession, as a result poverty was again on the rise in Nigeria between 1992 to 1995.

Apart from SAP, Fadayomi et al (1996) argued that Nigeria economy is characterized by unfavourable exchange rate, lack of budgetary discipline, high level of unemployment, under utilization of industrial capacity, shortage of raw materials, huge foreign debt and the attendant high cost of debt servicing leaving relatively little income for recurrent and capital expenditure, continued crash in oil price leading to loss of foreign exchange earnings and fall in standard of living as a result of persistent inflation. There is no need doubting the fact that these identified salient features of the Nigerian economy have had a remarkable effect on the quality of life of the rural people in Nigeria, particularly the poor whose conditions have been worsening over the years.

Again, there is the problem of inequitable distribution of income, according to Giddens (1996), the more the distribution of wealth and income in a country is left open to the mechanism of the market, the greater the material inequalities. This is the true position in Nigeria where the gap between the rich and the poor is so wide as a result of inequitable distribution of wealth and income. In Nigeria, some civil servant live in state of acute deprivation as they earn too little to bring them over the threshold of poverty (Oluyemi, 1995).

Couple with this is the fluctuations in income often experience by some people in certain occupations in the rural areas of Nigeria. For instance, Okeh (1970) argues that farmers and fishermen experience seasonal fluctuation in their incomes because of the lack of storage facilities for their produce. This explains why farm products are cheaper during harvest seasons but later on become costly. Again, fishermen make more catches during the dry season than in the rainy season. This unstable and fluctuation income is a major source of poverty to the people in this occupation.

Lack of education has also been identified as one of the causes of poverty in the rural Nigeria. In general, poverty is more prevalent among those lacking in education that are then forced to seek accommodation with poverty. Nobbs (1984), Buton et al (1987), Giddens (1996) and World Bank (1995). In reality, a large percentage of the rural poor are uneducated. This is because; education provides the means for securing a job either in the public or private sector. The vast majority of the middle class and those at the upper echelons were those who had access to education. Education thus provides ample opportunities for people to escape from poverty. In Nigeria, according to Chamber (1995) Adult literacy rate still remain at 55.6%. Lack of education is thus one of the major causes of poverty.

Aluko (1999) see poverty in Nigeria as a direct consequence of the institutionalization and the culture of corruption in Nigeria, he argued that a lot of public funds which could have been used to take care of the poor and the rural dwellers, are misallocated or misappropriated, there are stark ling revelation of looting and outright diversion of public funds meant for the execution of welfare schemes for the rural poor into private coffers. This culture of corruption has thus aggravated the condition of the rural poor as the various poverty alleviation programmes designed and the agencies established to help them have not been functioning. Again, corruption also weakens government and lessens their ability to fight poverty Aliyu (1999), Aluko (1999) and UNDP (1997).

Furthermore, there is the problem of debt burden and its relationship with poverty in Nigeria. A recent UNDP publication, Progress against poverty in Africa (2010) has correctly assessed, standing the way of efforts to mobilize the resources needed to substantially reduce poverty in Nigeria’s crushing overhang of debt, clearly real debt reduction under a reinvigorated initiative for the highly indebted poor countries is essential.

Again, the persistent inflationary trend in Nigeria, most especially between 1996 and 2008 has also been a source of poverty UNDP (2010). According to Abdullahi (1993) high inflationary policies inevitably brought adverse effect on nutritional condition of the populace in general and the rural poor in particular and have escalated poverty both in scope and magnitude. He maintained that the Nigerian rural dwellers face the most sever constraints on the food production, getting the right price for their products and in their access to food from market which renders them vulnerable to food crises and the consequent human deprivation. Most rural workers live far below their real requirement, as income cannot meet basic needs (FOS, 1996). Jones (1986) explained that many causes of poverty associated with the socio-political and economic sector of the society and not necessarily with the people. He argues that nations of non- government intervention in the economic structure or a laisser fair in terms of job creation for the unemployed has not generated the expected number of employment opportunities.

Gilford and Nelson (1981) have also emphasized that the concept of poverty and wealth have been an integral part of many human societies over the years, poverty amidst plenty has been justified and nationalized as a reflection of deficiency in the character of the people in poverty. It follows from this logic that if people are poor and the deficiency in their character are removed, they are going to escape the chain of poverty and consequently, there will be poverty free society.

Many writers have questioned this simplistic position stated above, some of which are Nobbs (1984), Aliyu(1999), Hills (1982), Obadam (1997) and Tussin (1979). They argued that most of the root causes of poverty in Nigeria can be located in the social and economic system and not in character or deficiency of the poor People. Tussin, (1975) specifically raised some issues with these following questions:

Are there forces operating within the societythat influence or cause poverty? Are these forces identifiable and quantifiable? Are they subject to manipulation and elimination from the society? Are those forces perpetuated through generations and are they impacting on all sectors of the society? urban and rural? (Tussin, 1975: 16).

Inadequate access to adequate physical asset,   employment opportunities such as land and capital,      and minimal access by the poor rural dwellers to credit, even  on a small scale, inadequate access to markets where the poor can sell goods and services, inadequate access to the means of   supporting rural development in poor regions, low endowment of  human capital. Destruction of natural resources leading    to    environmental degradation and productively reduction,    inadequate access to assistance for those living at  the margin and those victimized by transitory poverty, and finally, lack of participation, failure to draw the rural poor  into the design of development programmes. World Bank (1996: 10).

Be that as it may, some scholars, especially contemporal liberal scholars are of the view that more comprehensive enumeration of the causes of poverty is that given by World Bank (1996), in its analysis of the root causes of poverty in Nigeria. They includes among others:

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Messil (1996) argued that in the society and culture provide an insight to the root cause of poverty, He further maintained that the essence of society is social interactions which offer social security to human beings in meaningful reciprocal activities. Some post studies have concentrated their inquiries on the root causes of rural poverty in Nigeria, these studies have reiterated the fact that the root causes are many and varied (Buckey, 1993). World Bank (1996) and Robertson (1980). However

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