Journal of Administrative Sciences and Policy Studies

Poverty and Corruption as Constraints to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Northern Nigeria
Charas Madu Tella, Shehu M. Liberty, Ahmed Wali Doho

Abstract
The year 2000 would continue to be remembered in the history of Nigeria as the era of poverty and hunger reduction strategies ever adopted since independence in 1960. Since the Millennium Declaration, it provided an opportunity to focus on the eight MDGs objectives as important pillars of the country’s development agenda at the federal, state and local government levels. The eight goals are aimed at achieving the following by 2015: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality; to reduce child mortality;to improve maternal health; to combat HIV&AIDS, malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development. Today, there is growing evidence that these objectives are far from being achieved, with less than a year to the target date. This paper seeks to examine the policy directions of Nigeria towards the MDGs within the nexus of corruption and poverty as impediments to the realization of MDGs objectives. The research relied primarily on the secondary sources of information. The findings revealed that poverty and corruption are impediments to the realization of the MDGs in northern Nigeria and Nigeria as a whole. It is observed that,without genuine poverty reduction as well as good governance, Nigeria cannot attain rapid and sustainable development. It was recommended among others that unless concerted efforts are made by the Northern state governments and until the chains of catastrophic corruptions are broken, the target deadline of 2015 of the MDGs will continue to elude the North and will thus remain a mirage.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jasps.v2n2a2