1.0 INTRODUCTION

Nigeria has experienced a high incidence of poverty in the last

two decades and this has been largely traced to the adverse

macroeconomic performance of the economy especially as dictated

by the effects of negative external shocks and the adjustment

reforms that were initiated in response to the shocks; succeeding

governments have not been able to adequately cope with this deep-

rooted problem [Olaniyan O, 2000]; he further stated that,

studies on poverty in Nigeria have not been given priority until

recently. [IFAD, 2007] Stressed Nigeria has a population of 150

million, the largest in Africa and a fast-growing economy.

Nigeria is a country having lots of avenues in stabilizing the

economy. For example, Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy,

contributing about 45 per cent of GDP. The agriculture sector

employs about two-thirds of the country’s total labour force and

provides a livelihood for about 90 per cent of the rural

population. Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava,

yam and cowpea – all staple foods in sub-Saharan Africa. It is

also a major producer of fish. Yet it is a food-deficit nation

and imports large amounts of grain, livestock products and fish. 1

Nigeria’s huge agricultural resource base offers great potential

for growth. Recent government policies have started to show

results: between 2003 and 2007, the agricultural sector is

reported to have grown by 7 percent a year. The area of land

under cultivation could be increased by as much as 100 per cent.

And there is substantial scope for an increase in irrigation,

which now covers only 7 per cent of irrigable land. Irrigation

and other inputs would substantially increase average yields for

major staple crops, currently below those in other developing

countries. Despite Nigeria’s plentiful agricultural resources and

oil wealth, poverty is widespread in the country and has

increased since the late 1990s. Over 70 per cent of Nigerians are

now classified as poor, and 35 per cent of them live in absolute

poverty. Poverty is especially severe in rural areas, where up to

80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and

social services and infrastructure are limited. The country’s

poor rural women and men depend on agriculture for food and

income. About 90 per cent of Nigeria’s food is produced by small-

scale farmers who cultivate small plots of land and depend on

rainfall rather than irrigation systems (IFAD, 2007). Katepa

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kalala p. (2006) defined poverty as deprivation from resources

(physical, economic, social, etc.), which are needed to achieve a

sustainable livelihood. Poverty is recognized to be

multidimensional in its causes and manifestations; including lack

of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure a

sustainable livelihood; hunger and malnutrition; ill health;

limited or lack of access to education and other basic services,

increasing morbidity and mortality from illness, homelessness and

inadequate housing, unsafe environments; social discrimination

and exclusion; lack of participation in decision-making, social

and cultural life.

More importantly, many of the other aspects of poverty (e.g.,

health, education, environment, political empowerment) are

covered more fully in the assessments reports of the other

critical areas of concern. A commonly used measure of the

incidence of poverty is the head count ratio. This is defined as

the share of the population whose consumption falls below the

‘poverty line’. The poverty line is a specified threshold of

income or value of consumption for a given country, sub-region or

region, below which one is defined as poor. For developing

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countries, poverty lines are usually calculated as the monetary

value of some minimum bundle of consumption goods and services

(food, shelter and health, etc.) required to satisfying basic

requirements within a particular social context. Poverty lines

may differ among countries/regions in a given space in time, and

may also vary over time, as socioeconomic conditions change.

Forty four per cent of the Africa's population lives below the

region-wide poverty line of $39 per capita per month. However,

the extent and severity of poverty varies among the sub-regions.

The least prevalent incidence of poverty is found in the North

African sub-region where 22 percent of the population lives below

the sub-regional poverty line of $54 per capita per month. In

Sub-Saharan Africa, 51 percent of the population lives below the

regional poverty line of $34 per capita per month. In Sub-Saharan

Africa, the incidence of poverty in rural areas tends to be

higher than that in urban areas. Its further stressed that, this

(the incidence of poverty in rural areas tends to be higher than

that in urban areas) was found to be the case on the basis of

comparisons of the head-count ratio, the mean expenditure,

poverty line and average expenditure for the urban and rural

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areas. The extent of rural poverty varies among countries. Cote

d’Ivoire was found to have the lowest level of rural poverty,

while the Central African Republic had the highest proportion

(78%) of its rural population living in poverty.

The overall objective of this study is to assess the determinants

and level of poverty among dwellers in Adigbe community, Abeokuta

of Ogun State, Nigeria.

.

1.1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

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From the brief discussions above, it’s been seen that the

inability of one to express oneself to its full capacity, could

be as a result of poverty. For this reason, this study is focused

on the causal factor to poverty, how it affects the individual,

community and the environment as a whole, as well as possible

remedies to combat it.

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The study seeks to assess the level of poverty amongst dwellers

in Adigbe community, in Abeokuta, Ogun State. And, the specific

objectives are to:

• Identify socio-economic characteristics of the households.

• Examine the influence of socio-economic characteristics on

households’ welfare.

• Assess the determinants of poverty among the households.

1.3 SCOPE OF STUDY

To effectively carry out this assessment, the various indicators

of poverty need to be examined in terms of occupation, way of

living, housing, level of household facilities and infrastructure

6

available within the neighborhood. Also, the literacy level, and

income distribution pattern of respondents, the effects of slum

condition on the residents were equally investigated

1.4 THE STUDY AREA

Various expressions have described informal settlement areas

as congested district, characterized by deteriorating, unsanitary

housing environments and noticeably poverty area. Hence, the

areas chosen for this study include: Adigbe, oke-ijeun, oke-

ejigbo. But Adigbe was taken as case study for this research due

to some logistical changes.

7

Figure 1: Map showing Adigbe and its environ.

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The area is located in the northeastern part of Abeokuta towards

the far end of Panseke area. It has an adjacent land mass to the

Navy Boys Secondary School, and lies between latitude 7.126 º N

and longitude 3.325 º E’.

1.5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Multistage sampling technique was used to select the

representative sample. Some prominent area were selected from the

chosen area, this was done through random sampling technique to

arrive at a total of 50 respondents used for the study.

Analytical techniques used include descriptive statistics such as

frequency count, percentages, and mean values.

The data for this study was collected through primary sources.

Questionnaire administration constitutes the major instrument

used in information collection. Map upgrading, building and

facility surveys supplemented this. Meanwhile, only two

households were interviewed in each of the district visited. Each

questionnaire contains 44 variables, which were thoroughly

investigated to obtain information on sex, marital status and age

of respondents. Also, the residences’ socio-economic

9

characteristics, structural condition of buildings, the level of

infrastructure facilities as well as residents’ perception of the

government, education and their environment were investigated.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

According to De-Janvry A, Sadoulet E (World Dev. 2001), the

failure of many poverty reduction interventions has been because

they ignored the great diversity and heterogeneity in assets

portfolios across rural households and the range of activities in

which they engage to generate income. But, now it has been

discovered that peasant households in developing countries

typically earn income from many different sources [Babatunde R.O,

2008]; literatures on income diversification across developing

countries have pointed to the increasing role of off-farm income

in poverty reduction [Babatunde R.O, 2008] and with increasingly

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limited agricultural resources; many have proposed a poverty

reduction strategy, which would focus on the role of the off-farm

sector to eradicate poverty and ensure equitable rural

development. [Raju pl, 1995] opined that, the extent and depth of

poverty in the developing world is a disgrace; over 1.1 billion

people (30 percent of the population) live in absolute poverty

with only a dollar a day or less per person to meet food,

shelter, and other needs. Not surprisingly, hunger, malnutrition,

and associated diseases are widespread: more than 700 million

people do not have access to sufficient food to lead healthy,

productive lives; millions more live on the edge of hunger; and

more than 180 million pre-school children are significantly

underweight. Every second, person in South Asia and Sub-Saharan

Africa is absolutely poor; unless concerted action is taken now,

poverty is not expected to diminish much in the near future.

South Asia will continue to be home to half the developing

world's poor, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of poor is

projected to increase 40 percent between 1990 and 2000, will

emerge as an increasingly important locus of poverty.

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Poverty is a rural phenomenon in most of the developing world,

especially the low-income developing countries. The rural poor

make up more than 75 percent of the poor in many Sub-Saharan

African and Asian countries. Latin America's high urbanization

rates have led to a higher prevalence of urban poverty, but even

in that region the majority of the poor are rural. [katepa

kalala. P, 1999] observed that while commonly used indicators are

useful in providing an understanding of overall poverty

situation, yet they do not enable much insight into the gendered

nature of the underlying causes and incidence of poverty; they

tend to be based primarily on consumption and income data

collected at the household level. They are not however, broken

down by gender and therefore do not indicate the sex

disaggregation of those classified as poor.

These indicators are also unable to reflect gender-based

inequities within households. A key challenge for documenting and

monitoring the gendered nature of poverty is the development of

appropriate and reliable indicators. This would probably entail

the use of the common indicators of poverty, along with

information collected within households.

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Meanwhile, there is still a paucity of generally accepted

indicators looking at the gender differentiation in the

incidence, severity and change in poverty; for instance, the

presence of female heads of households is sometimes considered a

generalized likely indicator of women's economic poverty

particularly in Africa. However, recent studies have shown that

the existence of female heads of households does not always

coincide with higher levels of poverty. It was also argued that,

in West Africa, polygamous male headed households as a group had

a larger incidence of poverty in the society. However, an

argument can be made that, in many cases, women are the de-facto

heads of households. As such, in some features, sub-units of

polygamous households could be considered as female-headed

households. Similar results were found for Kenya, Guinea-Bissau

and Cote d’Ivoire. On the other hand, in Southern Africa, it was

found that the incidence of poverty was actually higher among

female-headed households. Other indicators for women’s poverty

which have been considered include family size, women's control

over resources and women's levels of education. However, for the

most part, there is still a need to collect gender-disaggregated

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data, develop indicators and use them for policy, research and

advocacy for the enhancement of gender equality in Africa.

[Olaniyan O, 2000] stressed that, there is controversy in the

literature on what exactly a poverty line is. There are two main

approaches that have been used to determine poverty line in the

literature; these include the absolute approach and the relative

or subjective approach. Under the absolute approach, a household

is said to be poor if its’ income or consumption level is

insufficient to acquire a given level of goods and services

regarded for essential minimum standard of living. The poverty

line from this approach usually has a fixed value; the popular

methods in estimating these poverty lines include the food energy

intake and the cost of basic needs methods. The relative or

subjective approach defines the poor relative to others in the

same society or economy. A relative poverty line varies as the

average of total population consumption varies; for instance,

when the poverty level is fixed at 2/3 of the mean; the relative

poverty line is both subjective and arbitrary. These controversy

notwithstanding, the main issue in poverty line however, is to be

able to get a poverty line that offers a consistent poverty

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profile so that we would be able to compare precisely poverty

among households. In the same vein, [Okumadewa FY, 1999] defined

poverty line as a predetermined or well-defined standard of

income or value of consumption, which is deemed to represent the

minimum required for a productive and active life or even

survival. The global concern about poverty is not by accident as

there is a general consensus that poverty has become a pervasive

and massive global outrage; this is because almost a billion

people in the world over live in absolute poverty and suffer from

chronic hunger [Akingbile LA, Ndaghu AAT. 2005].

3.0 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The basic assessing indicator i.e. access to portable water,

health, electricity availability, refuse disposal, electricity,

age of respondent was focused on amongst others in the

questionnaire used. They are seen in the table below:

Table1. Selected Households’ socio-economic characteristics

(WATER)

15

N Minimum Maximum MeanStd.

DeviationSource of water 50 2.00 3.00 2.1800 .38809Access to portable water

50 1.00 2.00 1.4600 .50346

Is the water portable

50 1.00 2.00 1.0800 .27405

distance coveredto fetch water

47 1.00 3.00 1.4681 .65445

volume of water used per day

50 1.00 3.00 2.3400 .62629

Valid N (list wise)

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Table2. Households’ socio-economic characteristics (HEALTH)

N Minimum Maximum MeanStd.

Deviationaccess to healthclinics

50 1.00 2.00 1.4400 .50143

method of medical care

44 1.00 3.00 2.0682 .50106

Perception of services provided by the government, is it free?

50 1.00 2.00 1.7800 .41845

quality of health facility provided

50 1.00 3.00 1.8400 .68094

Valid N (list wise)

44

16

N Minimum Maximum MeanStd.

Deviationaccess to healthclinics

50 1.00 2.00 1.4400 .50143

method of medical care

44 1.00 3.00 2.0682 .50106

Perception of services provided by the government, is it free?

50 1.00 2.00 1.7800 .41845

quality of health facility provided

50 1.00 3.00 1.8400 .68094

Table 3. Households’ socio-economic characteristics (REFUSE DISPOSAL)

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N Minimum Maximum MeanStd.

DeviationMethod of refusedisposal

50 1.00 3.00 2.0000 .67006

if approved refuse collector

18 1.00 9.00 2.5556 2.99455

Waste collectioneffectiveness

50 1.00 999.00 699.9200

461.49057

Method of refusestorage before disposal

50 1.00 999.00 61.3600 239.29716

Is there a dump site within the vicinity

50 1.00 2.00 1.1000 .30305

Valid N (list wise)

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Table 4. Households’ socio-economic characteristics (ELECTRICITY)

N Minimum Maximum MeanStd.

DeviationDo you have constant access to power supply

50 1.00 2.00 1.9200 .27405

Valid N (list wise)

50

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Table5. Households’ socio-economic characteristics (AGE OF RESPONDANTS)

Frequency

Percent

ValidPercent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

15-20 4 8.0 8.0 8.021-25 5 10.0 10.0 18.026-40 23 46.0 46.0 64.041 and above

18 36.0 36.0 100.0

Total 50 100.0 100.0

The selected characteristics of the sampled households are

succinctly given in the tables above. From the tables, we can see

the severity of the study as well as extract or denote meaning

from the statistics. Table 5 shows an average age of respondents

to be 43 years, this indicates that the respondents are in their

economically active and productive age bracket while nearly two-

third of the sampled households are either students or

pensioners. But those amongst the range of the working class are

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mostly traders, petty traders and few are farmers. This accounts

for the low level of income at this area as seen in Table 6

below. Also, it could be denoted that few are civil servants;

this may be as a result of either illiteracy or inadequate job

opportunities in the area.

Furthermore, in one of the section of the questionnaire used, it

was deduced that even those in the civil work could not boast

better of their income to the traders, this as a result of the

minimum wages not even enough to meet the needs of an average

family for a month. Furthermore, from the questionnaire it was

deduced beyond doubt that only the rich and their family go on

vacations regularly, as the average Nigerian couldn’t afford

such.

Table6. Households’ socio-economic characteristics (LEVEL OF INCOME/ MONTH)

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Frequency

Percent

ValidPercent

Cumulative Percent

Valid #18,000-#23,000

9 18.0 19.6 19.6

#25,000-#45,000

14 28.0 30.4 50.0

#80,000 and above

8 16.0 17.4 67.4

Others 15 30.0 32.6 100.0Total 46 92.0 100.0

Missing

4 8.0

Total 50 100.0

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Figure 2: Pie chart of level of income of the selected area.

3.1 CONSEQUENCES OF POVERTY IN THE SAMPLED AREA AND IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Due to the poverty level of informal settlements, Adigbe as a

case study, there’s a high probability of environmental

disorders. The sprawling of poorly controlled settlement

developments as a result of poverty has resulted in many

environmental and health related problems. Uncontrolled

settlement development is causing physical disorder, uneconomical

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land utilization, and excessive encroachment of settlements into

good agricultural land, environmental degradation and pollution

risks (COLE 1995). Also, as explained below, it has become very

difficult for the government to send social and economic

infrastructure/services to these areas due to the lack of space

and accessibility. The most common consequences of the expanding

informal settlements include the following:

3.1.2 Pollution from Solid and Liquid Wastes

One of the fundamental problems faced by the residents is the

lack of a proper system for waste management. Due to the lack of

established collection points, piles of garbage are scattered in

and around residential areas which leads to environmental and

health problems. Few residents opt to bury or burn their wastes

close to their residences.

As there is no centralized sewage system, liquid waste which

includes water from washing, laundry, kitchen, bath and other

domestic uses is haphazardly discharged onsite.

This disposal practice pollutes the groundwater and marine

environments and is a major cause of water born diseases.

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3.1.3 Flooding

Haphazard construction of houses has blocked many natural water

ways and has led to frequent floods during the rainy seasons

particularly in the months of March, April and May of every year.

This is deduced from the layout of the houses during the survey

while sampling the respondent. Soil erosion and landslides are

strongly related to flooding which destroy houses as well as

footpaths and unpaved roads.

Houses and other properties are being washed away by floods

forcing the inhabitants to vacate the areas. A high housing

density, which most of the informal settlements are characterized

by, makes natural seepage of storm water more difficult due to a

high share of sealed land Flooding which results in the overflow

of pit latrines and septic tanks is also a major cause for

pollution of water sources and marine environments. Due to the

non-existence of drainage systems, storm water creates big

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puddles that become breeding places for mosquitoes which is the

cause of malaria.

3.1.4 Accessibility

Lack of access is one of the most common problems caused by and

experienced by residents in the informal settlements. This was

clearly seen, as there is only one major road linking the area to

the outside environ via panseke route. Because there are neither

the layout plans nor the regulatory machinery, residents tend to

build to almost 100 per cent of their plot size. It has become

impossible to provide access roads to these areas as there is no

space for this.

Likewise, no area is left open for social services like schools,

hospitals, children’s play grounds, etc. Consequently, people and

service movement in these areas is very restricted and residents

have to walk long distance to obtain services like health,

education, transport and the likes.

4.0 CONCLUSION

From the study carried out in the study area, it’s clearly seen

that poverty is rampant within the settlement. It’s also seen

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that poverty is associated with informal settlements as a result

of many factors of which have been mentioned earlier. As

discussed above, and to further back it up, as urban population

grows the social economic needs (housing needs, amongst others)

will continue to increase, forcing more agricultural land to be

converted into human settlements and the prolific growth of huge

Informal Settlement, and when it sets in, leads to poverty.

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5.0 RECOMMENDATION

The critical issue that needs to be addressed is the extent to

which government can formulate development policies that can have

a definite impact on trends of urban growth. It is now clearly

evident that the pursuit of the urban biased policies inspired

structural adjustment programmes, have actually accelerated and

not reversed the rural – urban migration trend. Comprehensive

rural development policies backed up with a sound

decentralization programme (with a strong institutional up) offer

a glimmer of hope for the deceleration of rural-urban influx and

eventually the slow growth of the urban Informal Settlement.

Likewise the conventional spatial planning approaches have not

resulted in the desired or expected outcomes in terms of, among

other things, orderly growth of human settlements and pre-empt of

the Informal Settlement. The basic problems with these planning

approaches have been an inappropriate conception of space as

somehow separable from other dimensions of society, economy and

27

politics, together with the lack of political will to restructure

and distribute power (Simon 1990).

This state of affairs calls for a change on both approaches and

attitudes. The authorities necessarily need to appreciate and

offer support to the local people who are attempting to plan for

and by themselves. As Scholz et al (2005) argue, since there are

no alternatives, the ongoing informal or socially regulated

planning processes have to be integrated into the existing legal

system with shared responsibilities.

The above initiatives will necessarily need to go together with

the programme of upgrading and formalization of the informal

settlements in order to provide important services and security

of tenure to the poor majority.

Lastly, it has become evident that the bourgeoning of the

informal settlements is a physical manifestation of the

widespread urban poverty. Therefore, for a practical and workable

solution any policy or planning intervention will need to go hand

in hand with the poverty reduction strategies as outlined in the

Poverty Reduction Plan of 2003.

28

REFERENCES

Ameyibor et.al 2003

29

Huchzermeyer, M. (2003): A legacy of control; the capital subsidy

and informal settlement intervention in South Africa.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27, 591–

612. Synergy, ISI

IFAD. Rural Poverty in Nigeria’. Agriculture in the Federal

Republic of Nigeria: Approaches, Policies and Programmes,

13th February; 2007.

Mohammed Haji Ali And Mohammed Sulaiman

NBS. National Bureau of Statistics, socio-economic survey on

Nigeria, Abuja; 2006.

Olaniyan O. The Role of Household Endowments in determining

Poverty in Nigeria. Department of Economics, University of

Ibadan, Nigeria; 2000.

Simon 1990

Scholz et.al, 2005.

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APPENDIX

Figure 3:Caption showing an open dump site near the road side at

Adigbe.

31

Figure 4:Caption showing an open dump site within the street at

Adigbe.

32

Figure 5: A marshy mass of land

33

Figure 6: caption showing a prison training institute.

34

Caption of broader view of figure 6.

35