About

Development-oriented countries with large population often enjoy high labour force participation rate, great military strength and fire power; as well as an actual and potential large market; ultimately resulting to a huge GDP which translates into improved infrastructure, healthcare service delivery, access to quality education and human capital development. The same cannot be said about Nigeria; the most populous black nation blessed with vast oil wealth & invaluable natural resources, bountiful human resources, favourable climate and fertile land. In 2014, the country was declared as the biggest economy in Africa when it rebased its GDP to $510 billion. Yet, the GDP has lacked depth in jobs, inequality reduction and safety net programs, thus leading to greater socio-economic vulnerabilities in the country.

Poor investment in the nation’s critical infrastructure and underinvestment in health care, education, social investment programme has degenerated the giant of Africa to a mere shadow of what the country should have been; and

resulted to brain drain, unemployment & underemployment, high morbidity/mortality rate, increase in armed conflict and insurgency, amongst others. All these has culminated into the country being crowned as world’s capital for poverty in 2018. A report by IMF (2018) stated that Nigeria has 87 million people in extreme poverty, and the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty increases by six people every minute.

The biggest challenges that face Nigeria cannot be solved by the government, a single organization or a single group of people in the country. To tackle today’s most pressing concerns in Nigeria, all stakeholders in the country must come together for good to create innovative solutions to today’s problems. That’s why Habeeb Okunola Foundation was founded and registered as a Non-Profit Organisation in Nigeria, to throw its weight and resources behind community-based approaches aimed at solving social issues using sustainable models.