Absolute pover poverty ty in Nigeria: an analysis of the future trend

Abstract

The persistent increase in absolute poverty has become worrisome to both the government and the people of Nigeria. Using a Time series simple linear forecasting model this paper examines the trend in absolute poverty in Nigeria and made forecast of what the rate of absolute poverty vis-à-vis the nation’s population would be between the year 2001 and 2010. The result obtained indicate that by the year 2010, 129.6 million people out of the projected 137.8 million people would be poor if certain policy measures such as sound fiscal and monetary policies, increase in employment, heavy investment in agriculture, development and promotion of the informal sector activities, good governance and fight against corruption are not taken into consideration.