1.0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Nigeria is a country that is richly blessed with vast amounts of human physical and natural resources. The natural resources endowment of the country includes petroleum, gas and several solid mineral resources as well as rich and abundance arable land; (quantitative analysis of rural poverty in Nigeria, a paper presented at the department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria by Omonona, 2009).

There is a wide range of climatic, vegetation and soil conditions that are suitable for rich agricultural production. The diversity of species of plants and animals is indispensable for both domestic consumption and export. The country is also blessed with a vibrant population, a large proportion of who are highly educated, active and talented (the Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) a background paper N0.NSSP 009, 2009). Despite that, poverty is on a pervasive increase in this human and material resources country.

 According to the report presented by National Bureau of Statistics for national living standard survey (2004), about 69 million people were living in poverty which represents 54.4% of the Nigerian population.

The World Bank (2000:1) utilized inductive approach to uncover various dimensions of poverty such as well-being, psychological, basic infrastructure, illness and assets. One of such definitions is the lack of what is necessary for material well-being especially food, housing, land and other assets. In other words, poverty is the lack of multiple resources that leads to hunger and physical deprivation. Another of such definitions is ??lack of voice, power, and independence that subjects them to exploitation. Their poverty leaves them vulnerable to rudeness, humiliation, and inhumane treatment by both private and public agents of the State from whom they seek help?.

Poverty is a global phenomenon, which affects continents, nations and people differently. It afflicts people in various depths and levels, at different times and phases of existence. There is no nation that is absolutely free from poverty. The main difference is the intensity and prevalence of this malaise. 

Nations in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America are currently with the highest level of poverty and consequently with the lowest level of socio-economic development. They also have the highest level of social insecurity, violence, unrest and generally unacceptable low standard of living. The high level of poverty in Nigeria is beyond low income, savings and growth because all these are compounded by the high level of inequality resulting from unequal access to income opportunities and basic infrastructure (National Bureau of Statistics, 2004).

The Nigerian poverty profile constructed by the National Bureau of Statistics (2007) showed that Nigerian poverty is pre-dominantly a rural phenomenon. In 1980, 28.3% of the rural population were poor, which increased to 51.4% in 1992 before increasing to 69.8% in 1996 and went down to 63.8% in 2004 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2007). Which means from the above statistics that Nigerian rural population are living in abject poverty beyond or above it people that are living in the urban areas which are predominantly by educated elite of the country.

According to African Economic Research Consortium (A.E.R.C), a collaborated research found that poverty is contracted among the rural population in Nigeria with the Northern part of country taking the highest part of it, for these reason it is necessary to assess the poverty determinants in the rural area with specific reference to Kankia Local Government of Katsina State. It is in the light of the various indicators of poverty such as income level, household size, education level and unemployment level that this research will be carried out in order to assess the determinants of poverty in Nigeria. This study will focus on Kankia local government area of Katsina state.

Most states in the Northern part of Nigeria fall under the absolute poverty line, which indicates that they live on less than one dollar per day, those that are moderate or relatively poor live on more than one dollar but less than two dollar per day(National Bureau of Statistics,  2004). In Nigeria, according to National Population Commission (2004), 50% of the population live below the poverty line, only 40% of the population have access to safe drinking water, about 55% of the urban populations live in single rooms and 62% of the population have no access to primary healthcare facilities and most of them are illiterate and feed on one third of the required minimum protein and vitamin intake due to low purchasing power, and beside all these, the majority of the agricultural resources live in rural areas such as arable land but they still live in abject poverty which makes it necessary to investigate and assess the level of poverty in the rural areas.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The bulk of natural resources especially agricultural production in the country which takes place in the rural area but ironically, the level and incidence of poverty is very pronounced in these areas (National Population Commission, 2004).

Multilateral institutions like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and different bilateral aid agencies focuses on poverty alleviation, yet the world is still facing problem of poverty, especially in developing countries like Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria . Poverty is multi-dimensional; it means different things to different people. In this respect we can define poverty as the total absence of opportunities, accompanied by high levels of under nourishment, hunger, illiteracy, lack of education, physical and mental ailments, emotional and social instability, unhappiness, financial access, sorrow and hopelessness for the future. Poverty is also described by a chronic shortage of economic, social and political participation, relegating individuals to exclusion as social beings, preventing access to the benefits of economic and social development and thereby limiting their cultural development (Poverty Research Centre Australia: 2006).

A report by the World Bank (2013), stated that poverty concentrated more in Northern part of the country as against the South-West were the rate of poverty was lowest. The report shows that Katsina is the second poorest state after Sokoto state in Nigeria with Lagos recording the lowest poverty rate in the South-West part of the country. This report stimulated my interest in this research work and my objective is to provide further assessment of the determinant of poverty in Kankia local government in Katsina state. The outcome of my investigation will enable me provide some recommendations to the appropriate authority that will help in alleviating the abject poverty in this region. 

However, solving poverty problem has became the major task confronting most governments at all levels, primarily because of economic importance attached to it, various government in the country has also taken a number of measures to reduce the level of poverty in Nigeria. More disturbing is the fact that despite the colossal amount of resources committed to those programmes, the poverty situation aggravates, and more people fall into the poverty region instead of escaping.