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Nigeria WELFARE
Welfare concerns in Nigeria were primarily related to
its
general lack of development and the effects on the society
of the
economic stringency of the 1980s. Given the steady
population
growth and the decline in urban services and incomes since
1980,
it was difficult not to conclude that for the mass of the
people
at the lower income level, malnutrition, poor health, and
overcrowded housing were perpetual problems.
Nigeria had no social security system. Less than 1
percent of
the population older than sixty years received pensions.
Because
of the younger age of urban migrants, there were fewer
older
people per family unit in urban areas. Official statistics
were
questionable, however, because at least one survey
indicated a
number of elderly living alone in northern cities or
homeless
persons living on the streets and begging. There was some
evidence that the traditional practice of caring for
parents was
beginning to erode under harsh conditions of scarcity in
urban
areas. In rural Nigeria, it was still the rule that older
people
were cared for by their children, grandchildren, spouses,
siblings, or even ex-spouses. The ubiquity of this
tradition left
open, however, the possibility of real hardship for urban
elderly
whose families had moved away or abandoned them.
Traditionally, family problems with spouses or children
were
handled by extended kinship groups and local authorities.
For the
most part, this practice continued in the rural areas. In
urban
settings, social services were either absent or rare for
family
conflict, for abandoned or runaway children, for foster
children,
or for children under the care of religious instructors.
As with many other Third World nations, Nigeria had
many
social welfare problems that needed attention. The
existence of a
relatively free press combined with a history of
self-criticism--
in journalism, the arts, the social sciences, and by
religious
and political leaders were promising indications of the
awareness
and public debate required for change and adaptive
response to
its social problems.
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The literature on Nigeria is voluminous and includes
several
classic works on Nigeria's major ethnic groups. Among
these are
the chapters by M.G. Smith (Hausa), Paul and Laura
Bohannan
(Tiv), and Phoebe Ottenberg (Igbo) in James L. Gibbs, Jr.,
(ed.),
Peoples of Africa. Urban Hausa life and its
religious and
political nature is explored in John N. Paden's
Religion and
Political Culture in Kano. Possibly the fullest
account of a
northern emirate society is S.F. Nadel's A Black
Byzantium on
the Nupe. Kanuri culture is the subject of Ronald
Cohen's
The Kanuri of Bornu, while Derrick J. Stenning's
Savannah Nomads is the best work available on the
Fulani.
Simon Ottenberg's Leadership and Authority in an
African
Society and Victor C. Uchendu's brief but readable
The
Igbo of Southeast Nigeria are recommended on the Igbo.
The
classic work on the Yoruba is N.A. Fadipe, The
Sociology of
the Yoruba. This work, together with Robert S. Smith's
Kingdoms of the Yoruba, is the best general work on
Yoruba
political society.
Understanding Islam in Nigeria still requires looking
at John
Spencer Trimingham's classic, Islam in West Africa,
while
Islamization is well-treated in African Religion Meets
Islam by Dean S. Gilliland. Possibly the most
important
discussion on the synthesis of Christianity and Yoruba
religion
is that by John D.Y. Peel in Aladura: A Religious
Movement
among the Yoruba.
Perhaps the best recent analysis of drought and
climatic
variation in northern Nigeria is Michael Mortimere's
Adapting
to Drought. For a general overview of population
growth in
Africa, including Nigeria, the World Bank study,
Population
Growth and Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa, is
extremely
useful, as are other standard World Bank and United
National
sources on current population trends.
Finally, much useful information on health and
education can
be found in the annual Social Statistics in
Nigeria,
published by the Nigerian Federal Office of Statistics.
(For
further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of June 1991
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