Descriptive Analysis of Poverty Indicators in Rural Communities of Sokoto State

Multidimensional poverty in rural Sokoto State, North West Nigeria, encompasses deprivations across income, education, health, and housing that aggregate poverty headcount measures inadequately capture, necessitating a comprehensive descriptive statistical characterisation. This study conducts a descriptive statistical analysis of multidimensional poverty indicators across rural communities in Sokoto, Tambuwal, and Wamakko local government areas of Sokoto State. Survey data were collected from 280 household heads using the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Multidimensional Poverty Index framework, covering ten indicators across three dimensions: health, education, and living standards. Frequency tables, measures of central tendency, dispersion, and cross-tabulations were computed. Radar plots were used to visualise dimensional poverty profiles. The overall multidimensional poverty incidence was 74.3 percent, with intensity averaging 52.8 percent. Living standards deprivation was most prevalent (89 percent), followed by education (76 percent) and health (61 percent). Cooking fuel deprivation (91 percent) and school non-attendance (78 percent) were the most prevalent individual indicators. Households headed by women showed a significantly higher poverty incidence than male-headed households (84 vs 71 percent). Farm income dependency was documented in 92 percent of poor households. The study provides a statistically grounded multidimensional poverty profile for Sokoto State rural communities that can guide local government area poverty reduction programme targeting and monitoring. Keywords: multidimensional poverty, descriptive statistics, Sokoto State, rural communities, poverty index