Political democracy, managing poverty and development in Nigeria

Abstract

Poverty as an endemic factor for underdevelopment in Nigeria has drained the transitional process of Nigeria toward attaining the global advancement. Political democracy which is supposed to be a corner stone in improving the citizens welfare by its policies, has failed to meet its proffer responsibilities. Despite abundant resources, Nigeria remains among the class of under developing society and one of the poor nation in the world. The government lost her responsibility to make effective policies that would benefit and improve the better life of the citizens. Most of the policies adopted in a bit to alleviate poverty turn to benefit only the elites while the poor continue to remain in an abject poverty. The aims of this paper is to examine poverty, political democracy and development in Nigeria with the aim of drawing the attention of policy makers to the need to formulate a consistent poverty alleviation policy that should be backed up with consistency, political will and transparency at implementation.