COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF A DISAGGREGATED POVERTY INDEX BY GEOPOLITICAL ZONE: THE NIGERIA EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Poverty can be provoked by wrong government policies. Focus of this paper was to evaluate the present poverty index of states in the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The paper anchored on “Social Exclusion and Social Capital Theory”. Materials were sourced from internet, journal articles and textbooks. Analyses were conducted using descriptive statistics of tables, frequency, percentages and graphs. Result showed that poverty status of 87.72 per cent for Taraba state. Adamawa state had 75.41 per cent being second to the highest in North-East geopolitical zone. North –West poverty index revealed that its highest was 87.73 percent found in Sokoto state compared to 87.72 percent. North-central (Middle Belt) Niger state is worse hit with poverty at 66.11 percent. South-East in figure 4 showed that Ebonyi state has higher poverty level of 79.76 percent and Cross River state had poverty level as high as 36.3 percent from the South-South. It was recommended that federal government should be truthful in her fight against terrorism in the geopolitical zones. The real arrested bandits and terrorists should be arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment without option of fines. Sponsors of terrorism should be given equal sentence as given to the terrorists to serve as deterrent to others who may wish to be part of terrorism through sponsorship.