In response to the increasing rate of poverty in Nigeria and the inability of the existing poverty alleviation measures to alleviate poverty in the country, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) was established in 2000 by the Federal Government to serve as the highest poverty alleviation machinery in the country. The Central problem which the research addressed was examining whether the administration of NAPEP has contributed to its success or failure to alleviate poverty among its targeted population in Kaduna and Bauchi States of Northern states of Nigeria. The research questions, objectives and hypotheses were stated in line with this. The study covered period between 2005 and 2010 and concentrated on four schemes/programmes (FEP, COPE, YES and VEDS) out of the NAPEP Schemes/programmes. The research design was basically a survey research and data were generated from both primary and secondary sources with questionnaires, interviews and personal observation as the instruments for generating the primary data. The populations of the study were two. One was the staff of NAPEP in Bauchi and Kaduna States at the Headquarters and the selected Local Government areas whose number were 43 while the second was the beneficiaries population who were 3,051. However, 39 individuals were selected to serve as the sample size for the staff while 354 were selected from the beneficiaries to represent their population. Random sampling and Cluster sampling techniques were adopted in sampling the respondents from staff and beneficiaries respectively. Data were analysed qualitatively and hypotheses were tested using Pearson Chi-square test. The study revealed that there was ineffective coordination of activities in NAPEP among its various offices, collaborating enterprises and other government poverty alleviation institutions. Monitoring of activities of the programme was also found ineffective. Other findings were that there were managerial capacity challenges in the administrative process of NAPEP. This was in addition to the environmental factors that were found to have affected the success of the programme in the selected states. It was recommended that there should be effective coordinating system or mechanism, effective monitoring, adequate funding and enhancement of environmental factors among others in the selected states for effective administration of NAPEP.