NIGERIA aligned with the world to mark ‘International Day
for Eradication of Poverty’ on October 17.
According to Omoniyi
Salaudeen, writing on ‘Tinkering on policy options for Nigeria’s worsening
poverty index “the anniversary once again brought to the fore Nigeria’s
worsening poverty index, which has continued to generate concern among the
stakeholders”.
Quoting Oxfam
International, “the country’s poverty index has worsened with no fewer than
94,470,535 people living below the poverty threshold of N684 per day,
representing an increase of 3.4 million from the previous year’s figure of 91
million”.
The country’s
Director, Mr. Constant Tchona, who described the situation as pathetic, said
Nigeria was off the tract to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
adding that up to 25 per cent of the world’s extreme poor will live in Nigeria
by 2030”.
In what has turned
out to be a familiar terrain of Nigerian politicians or better still, a
somewhat wishful thinking couched in exuberant policy enunciation, President
Muhammadu Buhari believed that his government based on the ‘Next Level’ would
lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty dungeon over the next 10 years and
set them on the path of prosperity “to fundamentally shift Nigeria’s trajectory
and place it among the world’s great nations”.
Nigerians would have loved to see a well-researched planned poverty
alleviation packages by the APC-led federal government through a review of the
monthly statutory allocations to make the sub-national governments, especially
the state governments which oversees the local government areas to initiate
peculiar poverty alleviation measures to be effective and result-oriented.
Curiously, Nigerians
were presented the ineffective and ill-digested poverty alleviation programmes
named “N-power programme, Trader-moni, and school feeding which are better
handled by state governments taking full cognizance of the peculiar milieu.
These make-believe programmes have not yielded the expected benefits. It is
appalling that a programme like school children feeding should be undertaken by
a central government in a federal arrangement. It does not pay to brazenly
violate the sacred and sacrosanct principles of federalism as practiced the
world over. Principles are made to produce expected outcomes but when they are
violated, the outcomes will be distorted leading to wasting of resources and
enthroning socio-economic quagmire.
The policy of
massive foreign borrowing by the APC-led federal government to fund
infrastructures has turned out to be not the ideal and proper management of the
economy. In sane and sanitised polities, foreign loans are planned to be taken
when sufficient feasibility studies are conducted on viable manufacturing
industries that will guarantee massive employments and have products that will
have local and international markets and thereby pay back the loans from the
huge profits.
Indications are
there to show that the rising debt profile of the country further adds to the
hardship and privation of the masses. The loans have mortgaged the future of
Nigerians who are already suffering and will continue to suffer in future. It
does not pay to embrace loan options ostensibly to impress the people that the
party is gearing towards fulfilling the bloated campaign promises. It is better
to tell the masses the un-vanished truth and as the saying goes, one should “cut
his coat according to his cloth”.
Government being a
continuum, the next government will initiate another policy that will take due
cognizance of the resources available for realistic annual budgets. To make it
a habit whereby every year, substantial funds are devoted to recurrent
expenditures while lean portion will be for the capital provisions. This needs
a paradigm shift in budgetary proposals since good governance is all about
realistic planning and optimum deployment of resources in addition to a proper
system of government.
What has compounded
the socio-economic problems in Nigeria is the brazen distortion of the federal
system of government whereby the centre controls preponderant items in the
exclusive legislative list while the sub-national governments are left with
few, even when the federal government has proved virtually incapable of
addressing the enormous responsibilities it has taken.
It is difficult to
fathom the rationale whereby a government would talk glibly about poverty alleviation
while increasing taxes and especially Value Added Tax (VAT) where the net
cashes a preponderant percentage of the masses. Again, higher taxes have been
noted to be a disincentive for local and foreign direct investments. Lower tax
in the economy encourages saving and spur manufacturing concerns to generate
employment and create wealth. A situation where taxes are imposed, there is
bound to be job losses and escalation of anti-social gambits and violent
criminalities. It is appalling and exasperating that since the takeover of
government by civilians from the military regime in 1999, all the yearly
budgetary provisions in the social and economic sectors geared towards
bettering the lot of people in the low and middle income brackets have not
registered significant impact.
It appears that as
the years roll by, the fortunes of the hoi polloi have been taking a nose dive.
Consequently, Nigeria has been referred to by an international socio-economic
watchdog as the “International headquarter of poverty”. It remains a shameful
designation and appellation; and the blame should go to the past and present
political leaderships at the national and sub-national levels of government in
Nigeria.
Anambra state
Governor, Dr. Willie Obiano has accorded poverty eradication programmes top
priority in the annual budgets through the establishment of poverty alleviating
programmes. Commendable steps are being taken to establish skill acquisition
centres and acknowledging the efforts of the private individuals and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), geared towards uplifting the welfare of the youths.
Obiano has been
ensuring prompt releases of budgetary provisions to ensure that they do not
suffer hiccups in the training programmes. Consequently, hundreds of thousands
of youths have benefitted from the skill acquisition programmes organised by
the relevant ministries and agencies. At the end of the programmes, start-up
capital has been given to them which they have to pay back within a reasonable
number of years so that the funds would be re-cycled to the benefit of
up-coming graduates who have not had the fortune to secure white-collar jobs in
the public service or the organised private sector of the economy.
Also worthy of note
is the contributions of national and state legislators in the establishment of
skill acquisition centres, ostensibly to take the youths out of the streets and
reduce to the barest minimum, the social menace since the age-long aphorism
maintains that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. Through the constituency
projects, the legislators have attracted basic socio-economic infrastructural
facilities, in addition to building structures which are equipped for the skill
acquisition programmes. These commendable gestures are geared towards making
the youths acquire rewarding entrepreneurship learning and artisan skills to be
independent of their parents and guardians by earning at least modest living.
Stories about how some creative and enterprising ones have perfected what they
have learnt and moved a notch higher and expanded their small scale enterprises
and became employers of labour abound.
Anambra State
indigenes, mainly legislators and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should
be commended for assisting the government to alleviate poverty through the
establishment of centres for skill acquisition. One of the NGOs, named “Centre
For Strategic Leadership and Youth Orientation (CENSTLEYO), organised a 2-day
training programme at Senator Uche Ekwunife Event Centre, Awka, for the youths
to acquire various kinds of skills to equip them to be self-sustaining and curb
the wide-spread of social vices. The founder cum executive director of
CENSTLEYO, Mr. Imah Felix Emeka, said that the NGO was established to offer
integral human capital development of Anambra State youths in capacity
building, re-orientation and re-education which can aid them in proper
sustainable empowerment.
He said; “CENSTLEYO
is a national organisation championing the struggle for young people to be in
the fore-front of accomplishing programmes and policy initiatives targeted at
their reformation and empowerment. We have various directorates across critical
development priorities; headed by committed citizens across ethnic and
religious boundaries of Nigeria. Our 2019 focus is on fostering pragmatic
approach to youth development and reforming the political process as part of
post-election engagements, where key and relevant stakeholders would listen and
lend support to building better Anambra State in particular, and Nigeria in
general”.
It was observed that
youth participants and the devotion and keen interest of the two-day training
programmes which is a fore-runner to an elongated training that spans through
the establishment of small scale business enterprises with a start-up capital
donated and ware-housed in a financial institution and managed by trustees.
Expatiating further, the founder/executive director,
expressed passion to support Governor Willie Obiano to make Anambra State to be
ahead of other states in all aspects of socio-economic life. He said: “Anambra
State like most other states in Nigeria has a high number of unemployed youths,
ravaged by poverty and lack of skills and trainings, albeit, with great
intelligence and talent.
“Series of
engagement and interaction with them show an evident dearth of innovation,
industry, genius, and critical thinking. Our research shows that one in every
five youths in Anambra has no job. The number sounds alarming and mindboggling.
Entrepreneurial leadership and training have thus emerged as a great need in
Anambra, a naturally enterprising state”.
It has become
necessary that other NGOs should key into the vision and mission of CENSTLEYO
so as to transform the lives of the youths who are brewing with enterprising
spirit, zeal and hunger for self-actualisation.
Continuing, Imah
Felix said: “Given the above findings, we felt a great need for socio-economic
transformation and value re-orientation in Anambra State. The sense of a great
duty and a big burden to improve the quality of life of young people, led to
the setting up of a Centre for Leadership and Youth Orientation (CENSTLEYO).
The idea is to provide young people tools that will improve their quality of
life and drastically transform them, such that they become walking blessings to
others”.
The goal and
objectives of the NGO is to raise 300 young entrepreneurs from Anambra State
who will own business within a three-year period, and to train and equip 300
youths from Anambra [100 each year for three years] with vocational skills
needed to start and run a sustainable micro-enterprise”.