Governance and Enthronement of Poverty in Nigeria

Abstract

At the primary stage of human development, man struggled against his fellow man in his quest to achieve the essential needs of food, clothing and shelter. But the gradual and steady progress toward communal living was attended by the syndrome of collectivism. From this stage man evolved to nation-state status with the emergence of modern governmental system as one of its towering features. Henceforth, the socio-economic and political fortunes of nation-states have come to bear a direct relationship to the integrity of their governance systems. This paper takes a hard look at public governance in Nigeria. Relying on historical and contemporary data, we found that the enthronement of instrumentalist Nigerian state principally accounts for not only the quantum but also the structure of poverty in Nigeria. Again we observed that the conversion of Nigeria’s abundant human and material resources into prosperity for the great majority of her citizens depends crucially on fixing the governance question.