Development strategies are judged by results. Over the years, Africa’s political leadership adopted and pursued various development initiatives to translate the immense natural resources of the continent into prosperity for the benefits of her teeming population. Unfortunately, the outcomes of these efforts have been abysmal. This study assessed the achievement of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in curtailing poverty in Nigeria from 1999-2015. The paper adopted the theory of the postcolonial state of Africa to explain the increasing rate of poverty in Nigeria, despite the NEPAD poverty reduction ambition. The study is anchored on documentary methods of data collection. The paper concludes that genuine poverty reduction can only be realized when Nigeria political leadership sincerely invests in her human resources in terms of genuine empowerment of the populace through skill acquisition.