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NAPEP: A TRI-CAUSAL EXPLANATION OF WHY IT FAILED 

Anas Elochukwu
The Confucius Institute,

NnamdiAzikiwe University, Akwa.

Abstract

National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP)—the flagship of Nigeria's efforts to realize 
the UN's millennium development goal on extreme poverty and hunger—coordinated federal 
government-funded poverty reduction projects from 2001 to 2014.It replaced Poverty Alleviation 
Programme (PAP) which had been created in 2000.The appellative shift from “poverty 
alleviation” to “poverty eradication” must have created an illusion of renewed determination to 
reduce the country's hunger and poverty statistics. NAPEP was generously funded; still it failed 
to be recognizably different from its predecessors. In fact, the number of Nigerians who slipped 
into poverty during its years increased rather than decreased. The paper discusses the three main 
reasons for the failure, namely broad-based approach (universalism), state capture (corruption) 
and beneficiary exclusion. Its goal is to problematize poverty reduction efforts in developing 
countries. 

Keywords: National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Nigeria, Poverty Alleviation 
Programme (PAP), broad-based approach (universalism), state capture 
(corruption), beneficiary exclusion. 

Introduction

Poverty is one of the challenges mankind has been grappling with since creation. Modern man has 
surpassed the achievements of the preceding generations, turning deserts into luxuriant 
farmlands, contracting distance, bridging seas and tunnelling mountains, cloning animals, 
increasing life expectancy, turning oceans, space and the polar regions into research fields, curing 
or retarding hitherto incurable ailments, etc. He, however, has been unable to eradicate poverty. 
Poverty inheres in inhuman existence. It has dogged man since the dawn of time. The Bible 
declared many thousand years ago in the following verse that it is a concomitant of human 
existence: “There will always be poor people in the land” (Deuteronomy15 :11).

Povertyis one of the fundamental challenges of contemporary world. Stories about its havoc in 
Africa, Latin America and Asia saturate information channels. According to Lerman, “Today, we 
live with more awareness and concern about global poverty than at any time in our world's 
history. More than ever, people can see or read about swollen stomachs of hungry African 
children, 11 year-old Asian children working in sweatshops, and Haitian families living in mud 
huts without medical care, electricity, or clean water. At the same time, many of the richest people 
are global celebrities. Poverty can no longer be kept secret and neither can prodigious wealth” 
(2002). It is a recurrent theme in development discourse. It is also a trigger for street protest, a 
priority on legislative agenda, a motivation for philanthropy, a subject of exhortation and 
denunciation in a diversity of religions, etc.	 	 	 	 	 	 	

st
The United Nations entered 21 century,brandishinga two-phase agenda to eradicate poverty and 
hunger during the first thirty years of the century. The first stage, launched in 2000, sought to 

166



halve both the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day and the number of people 
suffering from hunger by 2015. The second stage, launched in 2015, seeks to end poverty and 
hunger by 2030. Despite all the resources it sank into NAPEP, the flagship of its poverty reduction 
efforts during the fifteen years of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, Nigeria was among 
the African and Asian countries that were unable to halve their poverty statistics by 2015. 	T h i s  
paper discusses three of the factors that thwarted NAPEP, namely broad-based approach, state 
capture (corruption), and the marginalization of intended beneficiaries in the formulation and 
implementation of projects. 

Poverty in Nigeria has been onexpansion modesince the country became independent of British 
rule in 1960. The statistical increase is due to a diversity of factors. One of the factors is the failure 
of founding leaders to change the orientation of the economy they inherited from the British: “At 
independence, Nigeria, like most African countries, followed the line of least resistance and 
largely continued colonies policies. In agriculture this meant the promotion of selected export 
crops such as cocoa, groundnuts, and palm produce” (Ake, 1996). 

Nigeria is an interesting case study in“the paradox of plenty”. Its landscape is one vast ocean of 
poverty dotted with is lets of affluence. Because the mass of its citizenry lives below breadline 
despite the generosity of its natural resources, it has been described as “a prime example of the 
curse that natural resources can bring” (Mahler, 2010). Its alarmingly high poverty rate mocks its 
ranking as Africa's largest economy and a major oil producer. 70% of its citizenry live on less than 
$1.25 a day (World Bank, 2014a). There are three obvious facts about its poverty. Firstly, as the 
following tables indicate, the proportion of the citizenry sliding into poverty has been increasing 
rather than decreasing.

Table 1: Nigeria's poverty, 1980-2010

   (World Bank, 2014a)

Table 2: Nigeria's urban and rural poverty rates, 1980-2010

(World Bank, 2014a)

Year Total national population  

(millions)  

% of 
poverty  

1980 65.0 28.1 
1985 75.0 46.3 
1992 91.5 42.7 
1996 102.5 65.6 
2004 126.3 54.4 
2010 163.0 69.0 

 

Year Urban Rural 
1980 17.2 28.3 
1985 37.8 51.4 
1992 37.5 46.0 
1996 58.2 69.8 
2004 43.2 63.3 
2010 61.8 73.2 
 

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Secondly, its poverty geography indicates that 66% of the poor live in the northern part of the 
country(World Bank, 2014). It is ironic that decades of northern domination of national politics 
have failed to reduce poverty in the north. Thirdly, there are more poor people in the rural areas 
than there are in the cities (World Bank, 2014a). 

Poverty Reduction Programmes

The following are Nigeria's major poverty reduction programmes since its independence in 
1960:River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs), National Accelerated Food Production 
Programme (NAFPP), Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs), Operation Feed the 
Nation (OFN), Green Revolution, Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure(DFRRI), 
National Directorate of Employment (NDE), People's Bank of Nigeria (PBN), Better Life for 
Rural Women Programme (BL), Family Support Programme/Family Economic Advancement 
Programme (FSP/FEAP), Poverty Alleviation Programme/National Poverty Eradication 
Programme (PAP/NAPEP) and NationalEconomic Empowerment and Development Strategy 
(NEEDS).Maryam Babangida and Maryam Abacha pioneered the feminization of poverty 
reduction in the country, founding BL and FSP/FEAP which, being gender-biased, pursued 
affirmative action for the womenfolk. The fact that the country's poverty rate has been increasing 
rather than decreasing indicates that the programmes all failed (Obadan, 2002). Former minister 
Nasir el-Rufai attributed the failure to non-inclusive economic growth. 

National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP)

National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP) emerged in 2001 from the reorganization of 
Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) which had been established in 1999. It had a mandate to 
inject a minimum of 200,000 jobs into the labour market annually. Fourteen ministries, namely 
agriculture/ rural development, education, water resources, industry, power/steel, 
employment/labour/productivity, women affairs/youth development, health, works/housing, 
environment, solid minerals development, science/technology, finance and national planning 
commission participated in the implementation of its mandate. It focused on four core areas, 
namely youth empowerment, rural infrastructure development, social welfare and natural 
resources development and conservation. The need to align the country's anti-poverty efforts 
with the UN's proclamation against extreme poverty and hunger might have induced the 
appellative switch from “poverty alleviation” to “poverty eradication”. 	

Olusegun Obasanjo became President at the time the UN was finalizing the launch of the 
Millennium Development Goals. Poverty was on his hit list and he had begun his assault on it 
with this declaration in his maiden budget speech:

[Poverty] must be seen, by every one of us, as a major source of embarrassment that 
over 70 per cent of our population live below the poverty line. This is in spite of the 
abundant natural and human resources that has been bestowed on our great nation. 
One of the major issues that this administration has undertaken to resolve is this 
lingering poverty that has stricken our people along the length and breadth of the 
nation. The extent of poverty has reached frightening proportions primarily due to 
the neglect of past governments (1999). 

He was a farmer. His Ota Farms at Abeokuta was a testament to his commitment to poverty 
eradication through food security. Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) which his military regime 
launched in 1976 sought to imbue the country with the autogenic capacity to feed itself. During 

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Elochukwu                          NAPEP: A Tri-causal Explanation Of Why It Failed



his civilian Presidency(1999-2007), he collaborated with Thabo Mbeki, Abdelazeez Bouteflika 
and Abdoulaye Wade to found the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). He 
underscored his commitment to poverty eradication by personally chairing the National Poverty 
Eradication Council (NAPEC), which formulated and coordinated NAPEP's activities, and 
whose membership included top government officials such as Vice-President, Secretary to 
Government of the Federation and ministers. In effect, NAPEP wasdirectly supervised by the 
President. Presidential supervision ensured that it received privileged attention and budgetary 
allocations. It, however, could not make it remarkably different from its predecessor, namely 
PAP. As the above tables indicated, the country's poverty statistics did not improve during the 
thirteen years the programme was in operation. Public awareness of the programme's existence 
was almost limited to the visual ubiquity of Indian-made tricycles popularly known in local 
parlance askeke NAPEP. El-Rufai (This Day, 2015) stated that the programme abandoned its 
mandate and became “a sales agent for Indian-made Bajaj tricycles.” Keke NAPEP has played a 
major role in expanding India's economic footprint in Nigeria. Those Nigerians, who used its 
importation and sale to enrich themselves, instigated the ban on commercial motorcycle transport 
('okada' in Nigerian parlance)in many parts of the country. The ban worsened unemployment and 
crime statistics in the country (Ojo, 2011). Most Okada transporters could not afford the tricycle 
because of prohibitive price. 

Why did NAPEP fail?

Many factors thwarted NAPEP, but only three of them are considered in the present paper. 

Firstly, NAPEP pursued a patently impracticable ambition by adopting the broad-based 
approach, loosely targeting its beneficiaries and operating an unsegmented timescale. For any 
anti-povertyprogramme to succeed, it must target specific groups and regions. It also must 
operate within time segments. The anti-poverty programmes of those countries that were able to 
halve their poverty statistics by2015did those two things. Poverty is a phenomenon that displays 
group and geographical differentials. In ethnically diverse countries, it generally is a minority 
phenomenon. For example, in 2010 Vietnam's ethnic minorities who constituted less than 15% of 
the total national population accounted for 47% of the poor and 68% of the extreme poor (World 
Bank, 2012). In geographically vast countries, it generally is a topographic phenomenon. For 
example, in China it is concentrated in mountainous areas. Since distance from the poverty line 
varies among groups and geographies, targeting groups and geographies is strongly 
recommended. Universal (broad-based) approach which NAPEP adopted could only impact a 
small segment of the country's vast poverty spectrum. Targeting (the narrow-based approach), 
which espouses affirmative action for certain groups, regions, began to displace the universal 
approach as a development tool during the 1980s (Mkandawire, 2005).Its virtues include 
efficiency in the deployment of exhaustible resources in poverty eradication(Besley& 
Kanbur,1990; Coady, Grosh &Hoddinnot, 2004; Mkandawire, 2005). According to Madavo and 
Sarbib, “For poverty reduction programs to be successful, it is necessary to explore creative 
solutions that will allow the governments of these countries to target their limited resources to the 
most needy [sic], and to use these resources in the most effective way. Programs that cover a 
country's entire population…are no longer sustainable…[T]he need for effective targeted 
programs that provide significant support to the poor within the tightening budget constraints has 
become more apparent than ever” (2000).Similarly, since most successful poverty reduction 
programmes have been implemented piecemeal, time segmentation is strongly recommended. 
Unsegmented timescale can encumber impact assessment. Corruption was the other factor that 

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thwarted NAPEP. Anti-poverty programmes in many developing countries are “distorted by 
long-entrenched patron-client relations or “clientelism,” in party politics”(Diaz-Cayeros, 
Estevez &Magaloni, 2012).Government has a tendency to use them to lubricate the machinery of 
party politics. State capture of NAPEP had three important dimensions. Firstly, most of the 
programme's strategic departments were manned by members of the ruling party, PDP. For 
example, while its career officers were federal civil servants, state coordinators were political 
appointees(Lawal&Umar, 2012). The director-general and state coordinators were members of 
the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the party that ruled the country from 1999 to 2015. 
Expectedly, those appointees were beholden to their benefactors (Ugoh & Ukpere, 
2009).Cronyism, without doubt, starved the programme of technocratic efficiency. Secondly, the 
beneficiary registers were rigged and stuffed with phantom and false beneficiaries. Phantom 
beneficiaries were the front used by the state captors to corruptly benefit from the programme, 
while false beneficiaries were those who were not actually poor but who still benefitted from the 
programme on account of close ties with the captors.(Certain beneficiaries of the programme's 
conditional cash transfer from the author's village were civil servants). Most of the poverty loans 
were not repaidsince the beneficiaries regarded them as “a gift” (Danjuma, 2013).Thirdly,the 
programme was instrumentalized against political opponents. State coordinators committed 
enormously to the federal government's efforts to dislodge Opposition governors like Bola 
Tinubu and Peter Obi. In short, the programme was weaponized and used to curb the Opposition. 
Politicization is a common plague of discretionary programmes. As noted by Diaz-Cayeros, 
Estevez &Magaloni (2012), “discretionary programs give politicians the ability to withdraw 
benefits on the basis of electoral criteria or for political motivation, such as when a beneficiary 
fails to vote for the incumbent or an election cycle is over.” The appointment of Tony Anenihas 
the pioneer head of the programme must have set the stage for its politicization.

The third factor was the marginalization of intended beneficiaries in the formulation and 
implementation of projects. Beneficiary participation has many virtues. For example, involving 
people in the design, management, and evaluation of projects that would benefit them enhances 
results (World Bank, 2000).Also, it saves beneficiaries the indignities of objectification and 
treatment as passive recipients of relief programmes (IIED, 2010). Beneficiary participation is of 
such importance that disregard for it is considered a dimension of poverty (World Bank, 2000). 
Some beneficiaries of Keke NAPEP were graduates who would have preferred to borrow to start 
their own business, but who were constrained by a lack of collateral to patronize the exploitative 
hire-purchase arrangement. Many people forfeited their tricycles when they fell into arrears with 
the arrangement.

Conclusion 

NAPEP was an ambitious effort by the Obasanjo administration to trigger a paradigm shift in 
poverty reduction efforts in Nigeria. One of the most ambitious poverty reduction programmes in 
Nigeria, it lasted twelve years, straddled three administrations and was indulged by the 
Presidency. 

Despite the amplitude of budgetary and bureaucratic attention it received from the government, it 
“failed to deliver on its mandate.” The fact that the country missed the UN's deadline on halving 
extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 was evidence of the failure. The present paper considers 
broad-based approach, state capture (corruption) and beneficiary exclusion the three major 
reasons why it failed. 

Poverty in Nigeria, like in China, is still concentrated in the rural area, hence the need for Nigeria 

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Elochukwu                          NAPEP: A Tri-causal Explanation Of Why It Failed



to learn the following lessons in poverty reduction from China.	 	 	 	

Firstly, loan is no longer a major component of China's rural poverty reduction efforts. Instead of 
loan, government may give villagers, particularly those in mountainous regions, fowls, goats or 
cows so that they could set up in animal husbandry. According to China Daily, “Though the 
money value of a goat or a cow may seem just like a drop in the ocean when compared with the 
hefty central budget on poverty relief, it could make or break a family. In some extreme cases, free 
access to animal husbandry would be the only lifeline for the poor villagers to climb out of 
poverty” (2017). This strategy seeks to empower beneficiaries through economic systems they 
are familiar with. Rural economy is so rudimentary villagers may find it difficult to handle loans 
and conditional cash transfers. Where loans are provided, they mostly go to cooperatives and 
measures are taken to:(1) ensure they are used for production, not consumption (2) prevent 
leakages and capture by non-poor (3) minimize risk of delinquency.	 	 	

Secondly, it involves embedment, whereby government station work teams in the rural areas to 
administer rural administration and monitor poverty reduction programmes. Work teams may 
help villagers to form cooperatives. For example, in 2015, the work team in Shibadong in Hunan 
province “persuaded villagers to pool the relief funds provided by the government---about 6,000 
yuan per person---and some of their own money to form partnership with an agricultural 
company to start kiwi plantation” (Liu, 2017). Cooperatives engage in many ventures such as 
farming scorpions, cockroaches or bamboo rats which are sold to pharmaceutical companies or 
are eaten as delicacies. Nigeria had a similar arrangement whereby, until the mid-1980s, 
agricultural extension officers were stationed in the villages.	 	 	

Thirdly, it gives infrastructure development high priority (ADB, 2004). For example, the country 
thplans to spend $120billionon rural road construction during the 13  Five-Year Plan (2016-

2020).The Food-for-Work programme (FFW), which provides funding for rural infrastructure 
construction (World Bank, 2001),utilizes surplus farm labour to develop infrastructure in 
poverty-stricken areas (Wang, Yanshun & Zhou, 2004). Under FFW, villagers are compelled to 
participate in building infrastructure projects such as roads and irrigation in their villages. Most 
rural areas operate “work day contribution system” whereby each villager is “obligated to work a 
certain number of days annually” (World Bank, 2001). Under certain circumstances, money, 
instead of labour, might be acceptable. One of the major problems with this metaphor for labour 
conscription is that villagers might lack the requisite technical skills.	 	

Fourthly, it uses short-term approach.  Target periods are usually divided into short time periods. 
For example, there were three time periods during the fifteen years of MDGs, which tagged three 
five-year development plans---2001-2005, 2006-2010 and 2011-2015. Before the MDGs, there 
were the 1986-1993 period, the 8-7 Plan (1993-2000) which targeted the 80 million poor people 
left behind during the 1986-1993 period, the Outline for Poverty Reduction and Development of 
China's Rural Areas (2001-2010) which targeted 50,000 villages most of which are located in 
those non-poor counties that were excluded from the 8-7 Plan and the Outline for Development-
oriented Poverty Reduction for China's Rural Areas (2011-2020). Nigeria does not have such a 
practicable time arrangement, hence its attempt to eradicate poverty in one fell swoop. 	

Fifthly, it prioritizes the participatory approach. Beneficiary interest in a project is almost assured 
if the beneficiaries are involved in its formulation and implementation. Village committees 
participate in the selection, formulation and implementation of rural projects in their 
villages(World Bank, 2001). In contrast, many poverty reduction programmes in Nigeria are 
imposed upon the intended beneficiaries. For example, the government may decide to build a 
bridge even when what the village needs urgently is a borehole.	 	 	 	

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Sixthly, it encourages reverse migration. County governments offer incentives such as loan and 
tax rebate to urban dwellers who voluntarily quit the city in order to invest in the rural economy. 
This strategy focuses on graduates since they have the expertiseto create jobs for unskilled or 
semi-skilled villagers. Returnees engage in ventures such as cockroach, scorpion or fungus 
farming ande-business. They also help villagers form cooperatives to produce and sell farm 
produce (Chen, 2017). E-business is enhancing the logistics of making farm produce available 
tocity dwellers. Urban-rural migration of graduates is a trend that has been growing since 2005 
when China began encouraging graduates to work in rural administration as village chiefs, party 
chiefs, entrepreneurs, teachers, etc. 	 	 	 	 	 	

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