A recent report by Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization in USA, put Nigeria atop the world poverty statistics — ahead of India. Expectedly, this has continued to generate reaction from Nigerians from all walks of life.
The report, titled ‘The Start of a New Poverty Narrative’, indicates that Nigeria has now taken over as the nation with the highest number of extremely poor people in the world, while the Republic of Congo is also rising as the second poorest in the world.
This,in my considered opinion, is sad.But instead of receiving the report on its merit, the approach being given to it by a section of political appointees of the President leaves much to be desired.
Reacting to the report after Last week’s Federal Executive council meeting, Minister of Trade and Investment OkechukwuEnelama said “the Brookings report may not be totally correct considering the parameters used in arriving at its conclusions.” He then proceeded to state that efforts are being made by government to reduce poverty through sound policies on Infrastructure and implementation of the Economic recovery and growth plan.
This appears to be the norm whenever external bodies release damning reports about the state of affairs in Nigeria. Methinks that instead of condemning or criticising global reports, we should accept them the way they are and take steps to correct the situation in a pragmatic way. It is not in the best interest of Nigerians whenever Transparency International releases a report on Nigeria’s status with corruption perception index, we come out to abuse TI instead of addressing the problem of corruption head on. Or when Amnesty International releases a report on our Human Rights status, we come out to attack Amnesty International that it’s report lacks merit. This shouldn’t be our approach.
We should accept the reports with all decorum, study the report and come out with measures to address the issues that put Nigeria in a dismal rating.
Now back to the Brookings report. What I want the Federal Government to do is to get the full report, assemble a think-tank to study the report thoroughly and advise government on how to deal with the issues that have made Nigeria to overtake India in the poverty rating.
The report clearly states“Nigeria has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor in early 2018, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo could soon take over the number 2 spot.
“At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.”
Sadly too, the report predicted that by the end of 2018, there would be 3.2 million extremely poor people on the continent of Africa.
This does not warrant our condemnation or unnecessary criticisms or resort to insulting the researchers. We should rather accept it with the equanimity that it deserves and marshal out plans to exit Nigerians from extreme poverty.
That is exactly what India did and today, the country is better for it. In the early sixties and seventies, Indians were all over Nigeria as Primary and Secondary School Teachers. They were everywhere in Nigeria because Nigeria’s economy was stronger. Our social institutions were better. But the reverse is the case today. Nigerians are daily looking for visas to escape to India for all purposes, including medical tourism.
I also think that the recent directive by PresidentMuhammadu that urgent step be taken by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to activate the nation’s economy following the signing of the 2018 budget into law is the right way to go with this report on poverty.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), SenItaEnang, last week said work had already commenced on the implementation of the budget in order to boost the economy and create jobs.
President Buhari directed that very immediate and urgent steps be taken so that the economy be activated, employment be created so that the market will be active and people can go around to buy what they need to buy and sell what they need to sell.
It would be great to have all arms of government to cease the opportunity of President Buhari’s directives to begin to combat poverty in the land. The Ministry of Transport, Housing and Power should work assiduously to leapfrog our electricity generation and distribution. Nigeria direly needs stable electricity supply. This is at the heart of boosting businesses at all levels-Large scale, medium-scale and micro businesses would surely depend on steady supply of electricity. Once that happens, industries are likely to have their cost of production drastically reduced and they would be in a better position to operate optimally. This is what is direly needed to create jobs and when jobs are massively created, wealth would automatically be created because labour creates wealth and once that happens, poverty would begin to vanish. This is what we need to address the Brookings Institution’s report as it concerns Nigeria.
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Mr. Dan Owegie is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Edo State.
