Abstract

Nigeria is the most populated black nation in the world, with enormous wealth from crude petroleum however, the country has been facing numerous socio-economic challenges including poverty. This paper discusses issues of poverty and population growth in Nigeria. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests as well as the Engle Granger and Johansen’s cointegration tests were used to test for cointegration and stationarity of the time series data on poverty rate, population growth and gross domestic product (GDP) real growth rate in Nigeria, while the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis was used to estimate a statistical model for their relationship. The results show that the variables are trend stationary and cointegrated; with a positive relationship between poverty rate and population growth, and negative relationship between GDP real growth rate and poverty rate in Nigeria. Hence, the need for the government to implement strict policies to reduce the country’s population growth, while ensuring increased investment in human capital development, agriculture and technology for greater productivity and poverty reduction. 

Key words: Cointegration, poverty, population growth, Nigeria.