ABSTRACT
It is necessary to first understand the nature of poverty programs in Nigeria to facilitate a robust analysis on the extent to which they have been effective in poverty reduction during the period under review. For the most part, the Nigerian economic base is neither socialist nor capitalist but tends towards a mixed economy, which provides an important explanation for the nature and dimension of poverty the nation is experiencing. According to Bade Onimode,13 some of the economic policies in Nigeria following independence were essentially policies of underdevelopment rather than those of development because they continued to entrench neo-colonial dependence policies. To several analysts, the weaknesses and failures of poverty programs in Nigeria, more than 50 years after independence in 1960, have several manifestations such as plunder, frustration, widespread poverty, and inequality in almost every sector of the nation's economy.
