Poverty alleviation: The Islamic Perspective. Nigeria as a Case Study.

Given that Nigeria being a secular nation and cannot adopt Islamic options headlong in tackling poverty wholesomely, our desire to drive our socio economic agenda to achieve sanity will remain a mirage. According to the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy document (NEEDS), about twenty-eight poverty alleviation programs have been put in place since the nation started its socio economic reform in 1985. Most of them are good on paper but they have been poorly implemented. Many of the saboteurs are within the systems. Trust is the bane of our society. It is not out of place to help or recommend to those in authority to address the economic challenge on policies of their administration, but that is always considered as an oppositional position. Our level of faith is rather too low. Government should intensified effort to reduce the rate of poverty before the matter goes out of hand as rightly pointed out by Gearge Washongton where he says " A government that cannotcater for the poor will not protect the rich"ii. National, international and non-governmental organizations (NGO's) should mobilize themselves including the academics to effectively tackle it.