Poverty reduction through the ICT : Global system for mobile communication ( GSM ) perspective

Poverty amid plenty is one of the greatest challenges confronting Nigerian economy. Government at all levels had initiated various forms of poverty reduction strategies in an attempt to reduce the incidence of poverty in Nigeria. Using data obtained through the administration of questionnaires on the operators of GSM purposively selected within the study area, the paper examined the extent to which evolution of GSM has been able to reduce poverty in Ilorin metropolis. A research question was raised. A hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The data obtained from the field were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chisquare. The findings reveal that GSM has contributed immensely to poverty reduction through income generated because of employment provision. The paper therefore concluded that GSM has the potentials to reduce poverty in the study area if proper policies such as an enabling environment were created for more operators to strive. Based on this, the paper recommends among others that government should create a technical ICT (GSM) training centre such that the trainee will be based on salaries and wages with the view that they will be able to provide services to GSM operators or users.


INTRODUCTION
Nigeria is a densely populated country blessed with material and human resources that are pre-requisite to economic growth and development.Ironically, poverty amid plenty is the greatest challenges confronting Nigerian economy.Actually, the case of poverty in Nigeria is not only ridiculous but also embarrassing.Despite the fact that Nigeria is an oil-producing nation, more than 70 percent of its population live in abject poverty.The high incidence of poverty experienced in Nigeria could be traced back to the period of oil boom in the 1980s that saw an unprecedented rise in poverty profile from 27 to66 percent in 1996 and to over 70 percent in 1999 (Akudulu, E-mail: muminikadir@gmail.comA recent study has shown that unemployment, income inequality, polygamy, sickness and environmental degradation are among the major causes of poverty in Nigeria.The National Bureau of statistics ( 2012) reported that about 112,519 million Nigerian live in relative poverty and this figure is alarming.Furthermore, the poverty situation in Nigeria is the high prevalence among the youths in the country.Despite the growing rate of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of 7.75 percent, there is no corresponding increase in the living standard of more than half of the country's population (Ajakaiye and Olomola, 2003).
However, eradicating poverty has become major challenges facing the third world today and Nigeria in particular.Due to the rising rate of poverty and its attendant consequences, government at all levels had initiated various policies and programmes in a bid to reduce or alleviate the high rate of poverty in Nigeria.
These programmes and policies can be categorized into the pre-SAP and post-SAP policies aimed at tackling the poverty level in Nigeria.The pre-SAP poverty reduction strategies include the Green Revolution Programme of 1979 with the mandate of mitigating the effects of food supply.In addition, the establishment of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in 1987 helped in solving the problem of unemployment to some extent.The Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) was introduced by the Federal Military Government headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo with specific focus on increasing food production on the premise that availability of cheap food would ensure a higher nutrition level and lead to national growth and development.
Other notable policies and programmes aimed at combating poverty are; the Better Life for Rural Women that was founded in 1986, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) in 2001, National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) of 2004.Aside these, the federal government also seek an effective collaboration with both the state and local government to have an equivalent of NEED, thus brought about the State Economic Empowerment and Development State Strategy (SEEDS) and Local Government Economic Empowerment strategy (LEEDS) respectively.Despite these efforts and the amount of resources committed to the programmes, they seem inefficient to address the problem of poverty in Nigeria.This is because poverty has neither ceased nor abated.
The role of ICTs in combating poverty and contributing to sustainable socio-economic development cannot be ignored.This is because ICT has played a leading role in driving economic growth and development in the industrial and newly industrialized nations.Specifically, the study examined the extent to which evolution of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) has helped to sustain income level and consequently reduced poverty in Ilorin metropolis.
The paper is presented in five sections: section one is the introduction which is followed by conceptual clarification, theoretical literature and empirical literature; in section three, we outlined the methodology that was adopted in the study; section four presents and discusses the results of the study and the final section presents the conclusion and recommendations.

Poverty
Poverty is a multifaceted phenomenon that means different thing to different people and has no single definition.In essence, it is easier to describe poverty than defining it.World Bank (2001) sees poverty as a situation whereby an individual within the society is deprived of the necessity of life, which includes food, shelter and clothing.However, poverty is more than deprivation of the necessities of food, clothing and shelter but encompasses the individual inability to have access to education, health and social exclusion.Ajakaiye and Olomola (2003) described poverty as inability to gain access to the basic necessities of life such as food, clothing, and shelter amongst others.
Poverty is real and it exists in all economies of the world, even at varying levels.
In another dimension, World Bank (1990) defined poverty as the inability of an individual or section of a society to attain a specified minimum standard of living.The term poverty is not having a universally accepted definition largely because it affects many aspects of the human conditions, including physical, moral and psychological conditions.It is perhaps for this very reason that Agbu (1997) observed that poverty is more easily recognised than defined.Odejide (1997) conceptualised poverty within the context of both absolute and relative terms.He described absolute poverty as the lack of resources to obtain and consume a certain bundle of goods and services, which contain an objective minimum of necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing among others.

THEORETICAL LITERATURE
There are divergence opinions about the cause of poverty.The decency theory points that poverty is externally created and can only be eradicated if the developed countries can alter their unfavorable trade relations with the developing countries, while the modernization theory is of the opinion that poverty is externally created in the developing nation and could only be removed through the internal strategies by following the development path of the developed nations.This however supports the views that poverty is caused by lack of employment opportunities, high population growth rate etc. Ajakaiye (2001) therefore categorized poverty into three; these are psychological deprivation, social deprivation and human deprivation.The first is concerned with income/consumption factors.The social aspect manifests itself in lack of resources required for participation in customary activities (social exclusion) and the final category related to the denial of right and freedom in the society as well as lack of dignity.
Report from the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that poverty has increased considerable in Nigeria with about 112 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.The report further stressed that despite the country growth rate of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 7.68 percent in 2010 as against 8.60 in 2011, the population of Nigerians living below the poverty line is increasing rapidly.
A report from the Federal Office of Statistics in 2006 indicated that the estimated incidence of poverty in most states in Nigeria is about 0.51%, which by implication it means about 51 percent of the country population are poor.Although, this is not peculiar to Nigeria alone as poverty is stricken in nearly all the entire African countries.
National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank (2013) reported that poverty has increased considerably in Nigeria with about 112 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.The report indicated that the country real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.68 percent in 2011 as against 8.60 percent in 2010; despite this growth rate, the population of Nigerians living below the poverty line was increasing too rapidly.
It is obvious from the above that there is a high level of prevalence of poverty in Nigeria.

Empirical literature
Many studies have documented the role of global system for mobile communication in reducing poverty especially in highly populated area.There is enough evidence to suggest that Global system for mobile communication can reduce the incidence of poverty in Nigeria.Global system for mobile communication is defined as a globally accepted standard for digital cellular communication.GSM is the name of a standardization group established on 1998 to create a common European mobile telephone standard that would formulate speciation for participation in GSM partnership.
For instance, Gold et al. ( 2012) examines the impact of mobile telecommunication on the Nigeria economy and the growth implications in terms of income and employment opportunities.The study reported that GSM leads to reduction in poverty level and incidence through increase in income generation capacity and business expansion of the households.Asheeta (2008) examines the role of mobile telephone in sustainable poverty reduction among the rural poor.The finding reveals that economic and social benefits of mobile telephone are higher in rural areas and consequently have a multi-dimensional positive impact on sustainable poverty reduction.Kadir (2013) had studied the impact of deregulated telecommunication sector on employment generation in Ilorin metropolis.The author used both primary and secondary data to obtain relevant information from the respondents through the administration of questionnaires.The results showed that GSM has considerably generated employment opportunities for youths in the study area.
Okogun and Abang (2013) reported that the GSM business has contributed to the economy in the area of GSM recharge card and printing.This has the effect of saving the country about $150 million monthly while providing employment and new skills to the dealers.
In the same manner, using Human Development index (HDI) and Gini coefficient, Okogun and Abang (2013) evaluated information and communication technology as a means of reducing poverty in Nigeria.The study reveals that country HDI is low which signifies that about 70 percent of the population live below the poverty line, and a growing inequality between the poor and rich was also identified through the Gini coefficient.
On the role of SSEs in poverty reduction, Yauri et al. (2008) studied 36 Small Scale Entrepreneurs in Sokoto and found out that there is a strong relationship between SSEs and poverty reduction in Sokoto metropolis.Specifically, the study established that SSEs is playing significant roles in creation of employment and serving as sources of disposable income to the entrepreneurs.The review of empirical studies suggests that not much work has been done on the relationship between Global System for mobile communication and poverty reduction particularly in Ilorin metropolis.This research intends to fill this gap identified in the literature

METHODOLOGY
In order to find answer to the question raised above, a hypothesis was tested to establish if there is any significant relationship between global system for mobile communication and poverty reduction.Thus, the hypothesis is stated as follows; H 0 : There is no significant relationship between GSM and poverty reduction.
The study is a descriptive survey type.The respondents were drawn from the operators of global system for mobile communication.One hundred (100) respondents were selected for the study.Data were collected through the administration of questionnaires on the respondent selected through purposive sampling procedures.The questionnaire was divided into two sections; section A   describes the demographic data of the respondents while the other section contains questions that are relevant to GSM as it is related to poverty reduction in the study area.
The data obtained from the study were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square.The descriptive statistics inform of frequency table and percentage was used to analyse the demographic data of the respondents while the chi-square was employed to analyse data on GSM poverty reduction ability.Three important variables were used to determine the extent to which GSM has helped in reducing poverty in the study area.These variables serve as a yardstick to measure the extent to which an individual who engages in GSM business was able to provide for his or her daily needs which invariably improved their living standard.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the results from the data obtained from the respondents.Initially, 100 respondents were selected for the purpose of questionnaire administration; 85 were returned.Out of the 85 respondents that returned the questionnaires, 50 of them were males, while the remaining 35 were female.
Table 1 shows the distribution of the respondents according to their sex, age, mental status, education level and ethnic group.
Another characteristic of the respondents is that 20 of them (23.5%)acquired tertiary education either in the form of first degree, OND, HND or NCE.45 of the respondents (slightly over 50%) possessed 'O' level and another group 17 respondents (20%) obtained primary school leaving certificate.Only 3.5% of the respondents claimed that they did not have any formal education.This implies that although majority of the respondents have acquired a reasonable level of education, they could not secure formal employment that could get them out of poverty in the study area.
This result further reveals that majority of the operators of GSM business in the study area are male.As can be seen in the table, 50 respondents (58.8%) are males and the remaining (41.21%) are females.Finally, the results indicated that majority of the respondents are Yorubas, totalling 35 or 62.4% of the sample.17 respondents are Igbos; Hausas has the least, totalling 15 in the sample.
Hypothesis testing: there is no significant relationship between GSM and poverty reduction Σ =35.753X 2 Σ (fo -fe) 2 = 35.75f Decision Rule: -Since the calculated X 2 value i.e. 35.75 is greater than the X 2 critical value i.e. 14. 86 we reject the null hypothesis, which state, there is no significant relationship between GSM and poverty reduction, and accept the alternative hypothesis, which states that there is a significant relationship between GSM and poverty reduction (Tables 2 and 3).The finding from this study corroborates those of Gold et al. ( 2012), Yaur i et al.
(2008) and Kadir (2013) who reported that GSM has contributed significantly to poverty reduction in Nigeria through employment creation and income generation.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The paper examined the extent to which information and communication technology has been able to reduce poverty in the study area with particular emphasis on one aspect of ICT .i.e.GSM.The findings from the study reveal that global system for mobile communications has been able to reduce poverty in the study area based on the calculated X value that is greater than the critical X value.Based on the findings above, the paper recommended as follows; i. Government should create a technical ICT (GSM) training centres such that the trainees will be based on salaries and wages with the view that they will be able to provide services to GSM operators or users.
ii.Government and corporate bodies should partner GSM operators by giving them financial and logistic aids so as to reduce the financial burden needed to operate a successful GSM business centre.
. Tel: 08038312673 (JEL) classification: E31; F31; F43.Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License 2007).

Table 1 .
Profiles of operators of GSM business in the study area.

Table 2 .
Areas affected by the use of GSM.

Table 3 .
Relationship between GSM and poverty reduction.