Nigeria Economic challenges

Nigeria has a lot of economic challenges, chief among which is poverty. And as you may well know, poverty is a state of extremely impoverishment and lack. In other words, people are categorised as poor when they are unable to afford basic necessity for themselves. In Nigeria, millions of people are poor; completely unable to afford basic needs of every day living such as food, housing and clothing. The situation seems to get worse every passing day and unfortunately the Government has not taken any actual [functional] steps towards addressing it.

Effects of poverty

1. Malnutrition:People living in poverty do not have access to quality/nutritious food and if they do have access to quality food, they do not the economic power to get them.
2. Poor health:when a child does not take nutritious food. It therefore means such child is prone to disease as the body does have the ability to fight off disease. When such disease is noticed, there are no financial resources to go to hospital.
3. Lack of Education:Many people living in poverty do not attend school, even when the school is free, they do not have the financial muscles to buy educational materials, school uniform etc.
4. Undeveloped Economy:without an education, it is very likely that people will not be able to get a job and when people are not working the economy suffers as they are not contributing their quota to the development of the economy.
5. Social Vices:Social vices like stealing, killing etc have a direct relationship with poverty. An increase in poverty level leads to increase in social vices. Many people living in poverty are homeless and stays on the street which may lead to social unrest taking over the society

Poverty Alleviaion Agencies

1. NAPEP:The National Poverty Eradication Programme  is a 2001 program by the Nigerian government aimed at addressing poverty in Nigeria and related issues.  Its objectives are as follows-
2. Training youth in vocational trade
3. Graduate internship
4. Creating employment
5. Giving micro-credit to small and medium scale enterprises.
6. NDE:The National Directorate of Employment was established in 1986 by the then Babangida military led-administration with the aim of combating mass unemployment. It focuses on-
7. Vocational skill development
8. Entrepreneurship development
9. Agricultural Development
10. Public work programmes

Method of Poverty Alleviation

Methods of poverty alleviation are the  activities embarked upon by governments and NGOs with the aim of either alleviating poverty in a country or reducing it to its barest minimum. Some of these measures include-

1. Creation of employment:Giving employment to those who are willing and able to work makes it possible for them to earn income and as such be able to afford the basic necessities of life.
2. Training:Training individuals will help them acquire basic vocational skills which will ultimately make them self employed and as such be able to earn money and be able to afford basic necessities.
3. Micro credit:Giving small credit to people who have entrepreneurial skill to start a business will assist in a long way as they can use profit made to get necessities and also plough part of the profit back into the business,
4. Provision of infrastructure:Provision of social infrastructure like electricity, good road networks etc will encourage investors to come to the country to establish and by extension increase the level of employment which will reduce the level of poverty in the country.

HIV/AIDS and the Economy

HIV/AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease which can also be gotten through other means. The illness (when left undetected and managed early), can affect the physical capacity and productivity of sufferers.  In this regars therefore, HIV/AIDS adversely affects the economy in the sense that resources are deployed towards catering for those with the disease. As commendable it is to take care of people who are sick, it has an opportunity cost.

Corruption and the Economy

Corruption is the act of knowingly taking what does not belong to you or putting oneself in a position an undue/illegal advantage over another person. Corruption can be in different forms but whichever form it takes, it has a negative impact on the economy. Let us take a situation where a government official steals public fund that could have been used to better the lots of citizens through road construction, power generation etc. Please note that corruption is not only financial or economical; it can also be attitudinal like selling of votes etc.

‘POWER AND ENERGY INADEQUACY’ AND THE ECONOMY

Power is critical to the development of any economy. Many companies in Nigeria have closed down their business operations as a result of erratic power supply and the huge cost of generating electricity for themselves. This has in in turn resulted in increased unemployment, which in turn led to an increased social vices. Nigeria currently generates less than 5000 MW as oppose the minimum 20000MW required to reasonably power the whole country. The [un]bundling of the power sector into three main components namely Generation, Transmission and Distribution have not helped to increase the rate of power supply and we hope things improve in the long run.

ASSESSMENT (POST THE QUESTION TITLE AND YOUR ANSWER IN THE BOX BELOW FOR DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION)

1. _____ is a state of extremely impoverishment and lack
   (a) distribution
   (b) corruption
   (c) economy
   (d) poverty
2. One of these is not an effect of poverty
   (a) developed economy
   (b) social vices
   (c) poor health
   (d) malnutrition
3. The NDE was established in
   (a) 1984
   (b) 1985
   (c) 1986
   (d) 1987
4. NDE stands for
   (a) National Directorate of Employment
   (b) Nigerian Directorate of Employment
   (c) Nigerian Directorate of Education
   (d) National Directorate of Education
5. Nigeria needs to generate a minimum of _____ MW of electricity to reasonably power the whole country
   (a) 5000MW
   (b) 8000MW
   (c) 15000MW
   (d) 20000MW