Education, Health and Housing in Ogoni Community: Does Government or Oil Firms Intervention Matter?
Ojide Makua Chukwu Gabriel
Socio-Economics Unit, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria
Ikpeze Nnaemeka I.
Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria
Keywords: Education, Health, Housing, Social wellbeing, Participatory development, Ordinal logit model, Households.
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of interventions of government and Oil companies on the social wellbeing (education, health and housing) of Ogoni community in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Measurement of such impacts is an essential requirement for policy formulation and strategic planning. Primary data used in this study were collected through a survey of 400 households using a multistage sampling technique. The results reveal that government interventions in provision/renovation of school building and provision of scholarship have positive effect on school completion in the community. Making basic education free is a good policy; but if the households would need their children to be involved in income generation, such policy may fail. Thus, empowering the household heads and other working-class adult members of the household to raise enough income for the household would help the children become available to benefit from free education policy or even household-funded education.