Rising poverty Level in Nigeria

Written by admin // October 23, 2012 // 0 Comments

nigeria-pres-Goodluck-Jonathan

Poverty reduction lies at the core of the global development challenge. For the international development community, this objective serves not only as a source of motivation, but as a defining theme across its work. Many of the world’s most prominent aid organizations cite poverty reduction as their overarching goal. But while Nigeria’s goal of poverty reduction is never disputed, we find it remarkably difficult to measure whether it is happening, and if so how fast.
For the records, poverty in Nigeria was first measured in 1980 by the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS), when 27.2 per cent of the population, or 18 million people, were classified as poor. By 1985, the Federal Office of Statistics estimated that about 46 per cent of Nigerians live below poverty level but it dropped to 43 per cent by 1992. This rate surged to 66 per cent in a 1996 survey and the total number of poor nearly quadrupled to 67 million (UNDP 1986). Estimates put the poverty rate today at close to 70 per cent, or 90 million people. Perhaps 40 per cent of these people are the ”core’ poor”, so impoverished that they cannot meet their basic food needs, and indeed, the stunting rate for young Nigerian children, a measure of chronic nutritional deprivation and food insecurity, stands at 42 per cent (UNICEF, 2003).
It is also on note that successive governments in Nigeria has tried different policies and programmers geared towards reducing the level of poverty in the society through a number of ways. First, through the activities of its ministries/agencies; second, by collaborating with international agencies; third, and more importantly, through the establishment of agencies equipped solely to fight rising poverty and unemployment in Nigeria, but none of these have done anything in bringing the poverty level to even a minimal not even alleviating it.
For instance, the Joda Panel, established at the inception of the civilian administration of Obasanjo to review the various poverty eradication programmes of the previous regimes, identified over twenty of such institutions. They are:The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN). Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank Ltd (NACB), Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA), National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, Federal Agricultural Coordinating Unit (FACU), Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), Agricultural Projects Monitoring and Evaluation Unit (APMEU),Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), Industrial Development Centre (IDC), Federal Department of Rural Development (FDRD), Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Water Resources and Power and Steel, River Basin Development Authorities (RBDAs), Family Support Trust Fund (FSTF), National Centre for Women Development (CWD), Nigerian Bank for Commerce and Industry (NBCI), Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB), Nigerian Export-Import Bank ,National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), National Poverty Eradication Programme(NAPEP), but none of this has done any tangible thing to the ravaging poverty in the country.
However, the recent revelation that over 90 per cent of Nigerians are living below the poverty line is symptomatic of the failure of governance in all its ramifications. In view of the nation’s plentiful natural and human resources, Nigeria should have no business with poverty. Nigerians should be assured of, at least, the basic necessities of life.
And as such in a society where poverty and insecurity are endemic, people will be prone to social unrest, political crises, as well as rapid changes. Poverty implies that people cannot satisfy their needs for survival and well-being even if the goods and services are available. It is a permanent state of inequality and inequity, and until the society designs policies and strategies to overcome it nationally and internationally, no one is secured.
Programs such as PAP, NAPEP, NEEDS have not ask what happened to the poor after two decades amid economic growth and millennium development goals expenditure in Nigeria? Thus, filling this empirical gap is crucial for Nigeria’s effort on poverty reduction and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To the best of our knowledge, no work found specifically that has empirically evaluated pro-poor programs in Nigeria over the last two decades.
The main issue in Nigeria is that the Poor is not regarded as a Key Factor in Development. What the Nigerian government needs to know is that the poor as overwhelming part of the labour force, one of the active factors of production is the centerpiece of any development, the innovative capacity of entrepreneur depends on energy, effort and dexterity of the poor workers, yet paid little in a complicated job task!
However, in Nigeria, the case is different as the poor workers are generally either self-employed or wage earners. The former engages as farmers, petty traders or artisan’s while the latter are basically unskilled workers. The main bottlenecks usually confronted by these categories of people are in getting credit, market, insurance, storage, and access to new technology, extension services, and infrastructure and government regulations.
Also removing infrastructure and services constraints usually requires substantive domestic policy changes. Perhaps, if there are no changes to domestic policy the self-employed poor will remain vulnerable internally (through unfavourable domestic policies and weak institutions) and externally (via shocks arising from trade liberalization and globalization).
Workers in Nigeria, like any other developing country, where there is abundant supplies of unskilled labour should have comparative advantage in production of labour-intensive commodities. This should be one of the benefits of trade liberalization. Thus, improving wages and opening employment opportunities for workers.
However, on the contrary, Nigeria has abundant supplies of factors such as land and mineral resources, trade liberalization have not substantially benefit the labour-intensive sectors. Although, there is little evidence that poor, unskilled workers get lower wages in the presence of powerful multinational companies (that hire people with low bargaining power) compared with what they will get in their absence ceteris paribus.
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According to the National Bureau of Statistics its recent report from 68 million poor people in 2004 to 112 million in 2010, there is no parameter to measure the performance of the present and past Nigerian leaders other than this verdict.
From north to south and from east to west, the matter at issue is not absence of natural resources, as Nigeria is richly endowed. Rather, the problem is with the utilization of the proceeds from the resources the Almighty Allah has given to Nigeria.
For instance Nigeria sells 1.5 million barrels per day; Nigeria had sold no less than 4 billion barrels of crude oil between 2004 and 2010. If we use a modest exchange rate of N120/$ and $70 per barrel throughout the seven-year period, the total proceeds would have been at least N32 trillion. Although, the Nigerian government partners with major oil companies in crude oil production and export, a 50 percent portion would have accrued at least N16 trillion to the government purse, in addition to several other loans borrowed from local and foreign creditors during this period for developmental purposes. Apart from that, there are other sources of income to Nigeria, because for a while now, the non-oil export has gained more prominence but up till now Nigeria still remains poor.
Today as it is Nigeria ranks high on the yearly corruption index. In 2011, Nigeria scored 2.4 on a scale of 10, which means the country is highly corrupt. The monster called corruption is virtually everywhere. This was evident in the subsidy probe where contradicting figures were rolled out by different government MDAs as the volume of petrol (PMS) consumed on daily basis. Also, the pension payments have been bastardized as people who retired several years ago are yet to get their gratuities. All these have shown that the country’s resources are not channelled into productive activities.
If the issues of poverty must be dealt with, then the whole nation and government at all levels must kill this dreaded monster called corruption.

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