Political-Administrative Constraints and the Realization of Sustainable Development Goal 1 in Rivers State, Nigeria (2015-2025)

This article examines the influence of political-administrative constraints on the realization of the Sustainable Development Goal One (SDG 1: No Poverty) in Rivers State, Nigeria from 2015-2025. Based on the Institutional Theory and the Marxian Theory of the State, it highlights how governance issues including political interference, executive-legislative tensions, bureaucratic weakness, policy discontinuity, poor use of budgetary resources and lack of institutional coordination have undermined poverty reduction efforts. The research design was descriptive survey. The population of the study was made up of the estimated 7.48million inhabitants of Rivers State with a sample of 400 respondents being selected using the Taro Yamane formula. Questionnaire, key informant interviews, and documentary sources were used to generate data, and then mean and standard deviation were used for analysing the data. The results reveal that godfatherism and political interference, lack of political commitment, bureaucratic delays, lack of coordination between agencies, broader governance weaknesses, and weak political direction hindered the implementation of SDG 1. The respondents also pointed out that budgetary allocations were misused, administration was weak, and budget was not approved in time, which exacerbated multidimensional poverty in the state. The study posits that presumably, the stumbling blocks to poverty reduction in Rivers State are not lack of funds but failure of governance. It calls for legal measures to ensure continuity of policies, better public financial management and accountability, greater coordination between agencies, and safeguarding of poverty reduction programmes against partisan control. These are the actions needed to achieve better governance performance and accelerate progress towards SDG 1 by 2030.   Received: 02 July  2026 / Accepted: 30 August 2026 / Published: September 2026