Background: This article examined the effect of poverty on economic growth in Nigeria because it was discovered that the existing literature has not holistically battle against the worsening scourge of poverty in Nigeria. Aim:The article specifically examined the relationship between poverty and economic growth, the determinants of economic growth and poverty from 1980 to 2013. Setting:The article is structured into five sections which include introduction, literature review, methodology, discussion of results and conclusion. Methods:The article employed an error correction model as estimation technique to analyse the time series data collected. The Solow-Swan growth methodology and the cumulative and cyclical theory were adopted as methodological approach to achieve the objectives of this article. Results:The article revealed a positive and significant relationship between inflation, life expectancy and economic growth, while investment proved insignificant. Conversely, poverty, corruption, debt, mortality, human capital development and unemployment presented negative relationships with economic growth. Corruption, life expectancy and mortality rate were significant, while poverty, debt, human capital development and unemployment proved insignificant. Corruption, inflation, life expectancy and mortality rate were the determinants of economic growth. Finally, the article further revealed that all the variables were determinants of poverty in Nigeria except corruption and human capital development. Conclusion:The article concluded that poverty, corruption, debt, mortality rate, human capital development and unemployment retarded economic growth, whereas other variables enhanced economic growth. The article therefore recommends that government should establish quality institutions and sincere poverty alleviation programmes to improve the level of economic growth in Nigeria.

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The paper examined public perception of the effects of poverty on economic growth in Ghana. It specifically examined public perception on the relationship between poverty and economic growth in Ghana using a combination of descriptive statistics and Logit Model to analyse the primary data collected. The result revealed that poverty does not lower investment, per capita income was not high enough to reflect Ghana’s resources, it was also discovered that poverty programmes are effective and standard of living were inadequate. The paper further discovered that unemployment rate was not too high in Ghana. Corruption does not pose any threat to poverty and economic growth. There existed low income inequality between the rich and the poor but income was not evenly distributed while  inflation does not increased the plight of the poor or deteriorates the living standard of the poor. The result further discovered that government performance was inadequate, lifespan was low, Ghana was able to meet MDGs goal by the end of 2015 but may not be able to sustain the achievement beyond 2015. Above all, poverty decisively slowed down the pace of economic growth in Ghana. The result of the Logit model showed that unemployment, corruption, secondary school enrollment, government policy, life-expectancy and poverty retarded economic growth while investment, aggregate consumption expenditure, pattern of income distribution and inflation, enhanced economic growth in Ghana. The result further revealed that only investment, aggregate consumption expenditure and inflation are the determinants of economic growth in Ghana. The paper concluded that poverty slowed down the pace of economic growth in Ghana. The paper therefore recommends that government should introduce and maintain policies that will permit improved relationships between poverty and other variables except investment, welfare and inflation so that they can positively and significantly contribute to increase economic growth in Ghana.

The twin menace of corruption and poverty in Nigeria has been limiting the nation’s economic progress. This study, therefore, investigated the relationship between corruption and poverty in Nigeria with the objective of assessing their trends between 1999–2021 and investigating the relationship between them. The paper used both descriptive and inferential statistics. The stationarity properties of the variables of interest were assessed. Four (4) models were estimated in the paper. The paper found out that poverty has a positive and statistically significant impact on corruption in Nigeria while the impact of corruption on poverty is negative. This negative impact is not statistically significant. It was, therefore, recommended that governments at both the federal and state levels should concentrate more of their efforts on eradicating poverty in Nigeria through increase in economic growth, reduction in inflation and unemployment. In the face of rising level of poverty, every effort to fight corruption will be futile.