POVERTY LEVEL It was estimated that 1.

2 billion people are in extreme poverty worldwide, 75 percent of people affected by extreme poverty live in rural areas (Khan, 2001). Many poverty analysis and research before now align poverty with income and expenditure of individual or household, or with a consumption of food basket which are translated to minimum quantity required to survive.

Because of the highest level of poverty experience worldwide in the year 2000 countries of the world decide to reduce the condition by half as targeted to year 2015 as a millennium development goal. However developing countries like Nigeria are facing mounting task of meeting the millennium development goals (MDGs) before the year 2015. It is becoming increasingly unambiguous that the first goal for reduction of percentage people in extreme poverty by half is unlikely to be achieved. The truth is that poverty remains a major problem among settlements in Nigeria. Many people are living under this ugly condition.

The prcised level of the condition was being debated. The outstanding poverty analysis approach had been receiving criticisms from experts worldwide, the approach being condemn centred more on economic threshold, most criticism stem from the fact that the economics threshold practice appeared skewed to one aspect, while poverty is by no means one dimension. According to Alkire and Foster (2011) in their observation highlighted that the reason may not be far from use of inappropriate substitute indicator in the measurement and analysis of condition. Even though the contemporary approach of poverty understanding believed that it cannot be related to income and expenditure of individual or household.

Although, there were conflicting reports on economics based poverty situation in Nigeria where some report are showing decreasing trend while others showing increasing trend. This is evident in World Bank, (1996) which reported that estimated Nigerians living in poverty were around 69 million (or 54.4 percent) in 2004, while National Bureau for Statistic (2007), revealed that, the incidence of poverty increased sharply between 1992 and 1996 from 42.7 percent to 65.6 percent respectively, but (IFPRI, 2009) reported that it is 29.3 percent in 1996 and came down to 22.0 percent in 2004. It went down between 1996 and 2004, from 36.3 percent to 32.4 percent. On the other hand, the proportion of non-poor was much higher in the country in 1980 (72.8 percent) compared to 1992 (57.3 percent) and 1996 (34.4 percent). Although it rose to 43.3 percent in 2004, it dropped to 31 percent in 2010 In 2010 poverty incidence was 69.0 percentage of population in poverty was 112.47 (NBS, 2012).

This sort of conflicts are seen not Nigeria alone, probably other countries might have been affected by it hence recent poverty studies shows an increasing interest on search for alternative but suitable approaches, current attention were shifted to looking poverty on many dimension a call from expert despite the fact that some still maintained that economic based poverty is more objective than

multidimensional, which is subjective and imprecise but this appear to be totally erroneous viewpoint. The current focus require analysis that will capture the actual situation faced by the affected people in terms of their accessibility & material resources endowment, level of health care services, conditions and accessibility to roads and markets, employment level, level of political voice, vulnerability to diseases, level of insecurity to life and properties, their physical and material weakness, gender inequality, level of environmental condition, level of housing

and clothing. All these factors when examine will customarily provide an explanation of the poverty situation in the area and the Nigeria in general.