The Landscape of Poverty in Nigeria: A Spatial Analysis Using Senatorial Districts- level Data

The study decomposes the Landscape of Poverty in Nigeria based on the significance of spatial contiguity using Senatorial Districts - level Data. The data used for the study were obtained from National Living Standard Survey and Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire Survey conducted by National Bureau of Statistics in 2004 and 2006 respectively. Exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial autocorrelation test were carried out on poverty incidence data. Average national poverty rate of the Senatorial Districts (SD) was 56.0%. Forty nine percent of the SD had poverty rate (PR) below the national average. The global Moran’s I value obtained is strongly positive (0.6657), indicating that spillover of poverty exist among SD. The study revealed that 52% of the SD with significant spatial association had low PR neighboured by low PR SD (Low-Low), 41% of the SD with high PR were neighboured by high PR SD (High-High) and 7% of SDs with low PR were surrounded by high PR SD (Low-High). The mean PR in high-high and low-low SDs was 82.6% and 31.8% respectively. The study recommends that for a significant poverty reduction to be achieved in Nigeria, greater attention in terms of poverty alleviation strategies should be concentrated on the senatorial districts that constitute the hotspots of poverty.