Essay On Poverty In Nigeria

Poverty is a global phenomenon which affects all continents, nations and peoples differently. It afflicts people in various depths and at various levels, at different times and phases of existence. People living in poverty are usually said to be deprived and they lack adequate means for good life sustenance. The most striking thing about poverty is that it has over the years become a multi-dimensional phenomenon. This view of poverty goes beyond the traditional uni-dimensional approach that primarily focuses on income or consumption expenditure. The justification behind this is based on the idea that income indicator is incomplete and its shortfalls lead to inaccurate estimations of poverty (Diaz, 2003). Therefore, alternative dimensions of poverty such as deprivations in the ownership of assets, health, educational attainment and energy among others are often weakly correlated with income or expenditure, (Calvo & Dercon, 2005).
On the other hand, poverty has over the years been seen as a problem of the developing nations due to persistent low standard of living among them. For instance, the poverty rate in Nigeria has been fluctuating and in most times it has been on the increasing trend. Empirical evidence from

Available evidence shows that Nigeria with its large oil reserves is ranked amongst the poorest nations in the world; this status actually contrasts with her economic potentials. With the formal power sector consistently failing to deliver, more Nigerians are reportedly climbing down the energy ladder – having to move from the use of electricity, gas and kerosene, to the use of wood fuel and other traditional biomass energy forms (Simire,