This study contends that poverty is a global phenomenon and no nation is immune to the scourge it is capable of causing especially when determined and clear policy measures are not put in place to check the menace. The objectives that interrogates the nerves of this discourse is to assess the rate of poverty in Nigeria as well as examine the role of government in poverty eradication. Also, to identify the various initiatives that governments in Nigeria have put in place since the pre; through and the post Structural Adjustment Programme era of the nation. Findings from the study reveals that attitudinal response and approach of both the government and the governed is appalling. Also, there exist a sharp disconnect between the government and the governed which has resulted into policy formulations that fail to meet the yearning, demand and desire of the people. Meanwhile, it was established that political and policy instability, poor targeting mechanism and inadequate coordination among the existing three tiers of government have done harm to programme implementation. The paper makes contribution by providing information and it adopt secondary source of data gathering. It concludes by recommending strengthened relationship/ communication between the governments and the governed to ensure proper and adequate policies that will meet their targets are made as well as enforcement of initiatives of governments directed at reducing poverty.
It is a time series analysis that investigates on the role of democratic institution in the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and economic development in Nigeria. The trend analysis clearly showed that sub-national expenditure is higher than sub-national revenue in Nigeria. The federally allocated expenditures to sub-national is far more than its corresponding allocated revenue in Nigeria and this becomes manifest from the year 1999 when the nation returned to civil rule up till 2014 under the administration of a dominant political party known as the People's Democratic Party (PDP). Using multiple regression analysis, the empirical results revealed 1% increase in expenditure decentralisation and revenue decentralisation would retard economic performance by 11% and 21% respectively when democratic institution index is included as explanatory variable. The impact of democratic institution in the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and economic performance in Nigeria is however, weak, positive and statistically insignificant in Nigeria as 100% increase in expenditure decentralisation and revenue decentralisation only yield 4% and 5% economic performance respectively in Nigeria. This has resulted to a wide spread level of corruption in Nigeria among bureaucrats and politicians. The study therefore advocates for a strong government institution that will be transparent, accountable and also respect the rule of law for sustainability, effectiveness and timely service delivery.
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