In order to achieve poverty reduction, both economic growth and equity have assumed a central
place. It is against this background that this paper analyzes income growth and inequality elasticities of
poverty in Nigeria over a period of time. The results are based on the analysis of secondary data obtained
from National Consumer Survey of 1996 and 2003/2004 Nigeria Living Standard Survey. We use changes
in mean per capita expenditure as a yardstick of economic growth and adopt simple but powerful ratio
estimates of Economic Growth and Inequality elasticities of poverty. The growth elasticity of poverty
indicates that 1 percent increase in income growth will lead to 0.624 percent reduction in poverty. The
inequality elasticity of poverty shows that a decrease of inequality by 1 percent would have decreased
poverty by just 0.34 percent. The result implies that what matters for poverty reduction is mainly
accelerated economic growth, redistribution and reductions in inequality