URBAN POOR CULTURE AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION
The pervasive poverty among many Nigerian societies is a serious concern. This prompted the study of the everyday life of the indigenous population of Amike-Aba in Abakaliki urban, Eastern Nigeria. It sought for values and behaviour that have perpetuated poverty among the people. The community approach to urban studies was adopted with continuous monitoring technique from 2023-2025. Oscar Lewis’ culture of poverty is the study’s theoretical berth. The mixed method technique was used to select the participants. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the participants’ characteristics It was found that an average native appeared apathetic, alienated, and over-whelmed by the pace of social change, got disoriented with dim and distorted traditions and marginal urban structures as poor spring-board for action. It is recommended that poverty alleviations should be customized by strategic intervention to deteach the people and reorient them to urban opportunities and high achievement needs that would crush apathy and poverty the unique contribution of the study is the insight that poverty alleviation program should be culture specific. An intervention that works for a society may not work for another society due to differences in cultural norms.
