Elite perceptions of poverty and Nigeria’s poverty reduction research: a theoretical orientation

The way the elite perceive poverty and the poor in any society constitutes a very important dimension of poverty research. This is because normally there are several areas of interrelationship and interdependence between the poor and the elite, and these form part of the basis for social life in all societies. Perceptions of the elite about such situations would therefore largely inform their behaviour in relation to poverty and the poor. In reality while the poor depend on the elite for improvements in their status, the elite are also affected (sometimes negatively) by the poor in several ways. Individual members of the elite do not usually ward off threats to their security, or realize the opportunities presented by poverty situations on their own; as such situations often require collective action on their part. Adequate information about the level of awareness among the elite about these interdependencies, together with the extent of the sense of responsibility among them, is therefore deemed to constitute a missing but necessary input into Nigerian poverty research aimed at bringing about substantial change in the current poverty scenario. This paper is therefore aimed at theoretically contributing to the creation of adequate focus on the importance of this aspect of poverty research. Such an insight is particularly crucial in a developing country like Nigeria, where poverty afflicts a large section of the population, and where poverty reduction and eradication programmes usually championed by the elite, have usually not witnessed the measure of success set out in the goals and objectives of these intervention measures Keywords: Poverty, Consciousness, Elite, Alleviation, Research