54% Nigerians living in poverty—YAR'ADUA

from The Vanguard

By Tordue Salem

ABUJA— Fifty-four percent of Nigerians are living in poverty, according to a report from the Millennium Development Goals Office in the Presidency.

The Senior Special Adviser on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, Hajia Amina J. Ibrahim, disclosed this yesterday at the inauguration of the MDGs Committee in the House of Representatives, headed by Mrs. Saudatu Sani.

Her words: “54% of the population live in relative poverty; progress is low, while 35% of the population live in extreme poverty”.

The Presidential aide, regretted that the “Per capita official development assistance to Nigeria (In US$) is 4%”, while infant mortality is at 110 out of 1000 live births in the country, despite efforts by the immediate past administration to tackle poverty.

According to Hajia Ibrahim, though N100Billion was allocated to Ministries for the MDGs in 2006, progress is abysmally low in the country.

Earlier, the Speaker, House of Representatives Mrs. Patricia Etteh, who inaugurated the new Committee, stated that “It is in line with Nigeria’s commitment to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and annual commitment to appropriate Debt Relief Gains (DRG) to MDG related expenditure, that we deemed it expedient to establish a House Committee on MDGs.”

According to her, “This is aimed at strengthening the constitutional role of the Parliament towards appropriation and implementation of the MDGs. It will also reinforce Nigeria’s commitment to the attainment of the MDGs and to ensure public accountability and the transparent execution of appropriations towards this end.”

Some of the goals of the committee, the Speaker stated, would be to “Agree and harmonize the DRG/MDG budgets in collaboration with the Senate Committees on National Planning, poverty and other related committees and provide over sight on DRG/MDG budget implementation”.

The Chairman of the Committee on MDGs, Mrs. Saudatu Sani (Kaduna PDP), in her address assured the Speaker and Nigerians of “Our total commitment towards the committee work. We shall work hard to ensure that we perform our oversight effectively so that the MDGs can be attained within the date set out by Nigeria.”