Modeling and Visualising the Geodemography of Poverty and Wealth across Nigerian Local Government Areas

Abstract

Numerous researchers, commentators and policy makers have described poverty and inequality as the greatest challenges facing the Nigerian populace. Successive governments have pursued different policy initiatives with a view to mitigating the problem. In spite of large scale investment committed to poverty alleviation programmes, >50% of Nigerians still live in relative poverty with over a third of the population languishing in extreme poverty. To date, there is no published work examining the scale of inequality in poverty and prosperity amongst Nigerians at local spatial scales. In this study, we demonstrate the first attempt to exemplify the potential of geodemographics and spatial analysis in exposing poverty and wealth differences within and between Nigerian Local Government Areas (LGAs). We use a recently developed Nigerian LGA geodemograpic system to analyse data for five poverty quintiles. We discover that different local community types would be better suited to different initiatives as the magnitudes and direction of their predisposition for poverty and wealth vary. The findings reinforce the view that there is value in using geodemographic modeling techniques to better target local populations and to support poverty alleviation programmes in developing countries.