Policy Implementation and The Challenges of Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria

The rising profile of poverty in Nigeria has been a source of concern to successive government. To this end, various policies and programmes have been formulated to no avail. Today Nigeria ranked among poorest nations in the world. This is embarrassing considering the enormous wealth of the nation both in human and natural resources. This paper assesses government programmes and policies related to poverty in Nigeria using secondary source of data through content analysis. It was found that the policies and programme have failed to achieve the desired result due to high level of corruption, Top-bottom approach in tackling poverty, inadequate co-ordination of various programmes, politicization of poverty alleviation schemes as well as inconsistency in policies and programmes. It therefore recommended that Anti- corruption Agencies should be streamlined, the adoption of bottom-up approach, de-politicization of empowerment scheme as well as continuity, consistency and commitment for effective implementation. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n4p29