Millennium Development Goals {MDGs} and the Yar'adua's Seven Point Agenda in Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges

One global identity today is glaring poverty. The intercontinental epidemic has its worse effects on the developing nations of the world, Africa and Nigeria in particular. Indicators of this glaring poverty span through all human socio-political economic lives of the citizenry, from health to education, gender inequality and to environmental degradation. The United Nations woke up to this startling reality in September 8, 2000 in New York to adopt a millennium declaration to address this problem. This has hither to been adopted in Nigeria by the democratic government of Presidents Obasanjo and Yar'Adua. Yar'Adua in the wake of his administration declared a 7-point agenda to combact poverty and its attendant indicators head-long. This paper therefore observes that, though MDGs and its incorporated 7-points agenda of Yar'Adua seem to have the prospect and capability to address the problem of poverty in Nigeria, yet it lacks the in-built capacity toaddress poverty especially in this era of global economic meltdown. To this end the paper contends that some policies in the past failed to address similar problems due to lack of strong political will and corruption. Therefore, the paper examines some challenges confronting the attainment of MDGs and the Yar’Adua’s 7-point agenda in Nigeria. Finally, the paper identifies some policy suggestions towards realising the MDGs and the 7-point agenda. Content analysis is relied upon in the course of the research.