Alleviating Poverty in Nigeria - the CDD Initiative

from All Africa

Leadership (Abuja)

ANALYSIS

By Nathaniel Jonah

Several administrations in the past have made ambitious moves at eradicating poverty among Nigerians with each setting up its own agencies to tackle the ugly phenomenon but, very little has been acheived. Reports still show that majority of Nigerians still live below the poverty line. Nathaniel Jonah examines the activities of the Centre for democracy and development in its bid to alleviate poverty in Nigeria.

When President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua he left no one in doubt concerning his decision to effect a socio-economic transformation of the country. This naturally flowed from his numerous promises entrenched in his campaign manifesto entitled; "End poverty, develop Nigeria." As a fallout of his desire to move the nation out of the league of poor nations whose citizenry languish in poverty in the midst of plenty, the president further promised Nigerians to launch a massive assault on poverty using the United Nations Millennium Development Goals as his guide.

Thereupon, he launched his seven point developmental agenda which would serve as a focal point of his vision. The seven point agenda include a declaration of national emergency in the energy sector, revitalisation of the agricultural sector thereby boosting food security, wealth creation and poverty alleviation, land reform, human capital development including compulsory education for children and transport revolution which, includes mass transit.

No sooner had the president espoused his development agenda for the country than skeptical pundits began to call for caution. The misgivings which this section of the populace had for the President's enthusiastic declaration was premised on the failure of the previous administrations to deliver on their promises to alleviate poverty in the country. It is instructive to note that past administrations have engaged in previous times, in the past-time of glorifying poverty alleviation on the pages of newspapers and news conferences without any meaningful impact on the poor and downtrodden masses of Nigeria. Right from the Gen. Yakubu Gowon's National Accelerated Food Production Programme and the Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank devoted entirely to funding Agriculture, to the much publicised operation feed the Nation of 1976 under Gen. Obasanjo who, according to Anthony Maduaagwu "expended so much money and efforts in a scheme whose only success was in creating awareness of food shortage and the need to tackle the problem." All through the nation's political history, the story has been the same employ promises of poverty alleviation through accelerated and improved Agricultural practices but which only ended up in making the policy formulators richer and the poor masses, poorer.

Despite its array of abundant resources, and oil wealth, poverty has been the increase in Nigeria. The phenomenon has really aggravated to the extent that the country is now classified as one of the poorest in the world, a nation whose 70 per cent of its population is referred to as poor with 35 per cent of the citizenry, living in absolute poverty.

The Centre for Democracy and Development, (CDD) was established in the United Kingdom as an independent, non-profit research, training advocacy and capacity building organisation with the purpose to mobilise global opinion and resources for democratic development and provide an independent space to reflect critically on the challenges posed to the democratisation and development processes in West Africa. With the mission to be the prime catalyst and facilitator for strategic analysis and capacity building for sustainable democracy and development in the West African sub-region, the centre is committed to the critical engagement of the president on the appropriateness of his priorities especially as it relates to the issues of implementing an effective poverty reduction strategy in Nigeria.

As part of its efforts at facilitating sustainable development and enhancing capacity building in Nigeria, the CDD, in collaboration with other developmental Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) recently organised a civil society concentrative workshop on NEEDS II in Abuja.

National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, NEEDS is Nigeria's plan for prosperity. It is the people's way of letting the government know what kind of Nigeria they wish to live in, now and in the future. It is also the government's way of letting the people know how it plans to overcome the deep and pervasive obstacles to progress that the government and the people have identified. It is also seen as a way of letting the international community know where Nigeria stands in the West African sub-region and in the world and how it wishes to be supported.

In a presentation titled "concept paper for civil society policy engagement on NEEDS 2" by Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, who also doubles as the director of the centre, civil society organisations apart from critically engaging the president on the appropriateness of his seven point development agenda, it is also imperative for the civil society to quickly put its acts together to critically assess the president's seven punt agenda and make recommendations on the focus of government policy and finalise and present the civil society character of demands initially presented to the Millennium Development Goals' office in the presidency at the mid-term review.

Former deputy governor, Central Bank of Nigerian, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, also argued in a presentation titled; "Roadmap to Revitalisation of Nigerian Bank" that, for Nigeria to achieve the MDGs by the year 2015, concerted efforts should be geared towards the United Nation's Millennium project best practices which includes rural development for food security, increased investments to enhance rural access to transport, information and communications, urban renewal and job creation, building national capacities in science, technology and innovation, improving the quality of education, and human capital (universal primary, expanded post primary and expanded higher education amongst others).

While identifying major reasons why poverty schemes fail in Nigeria to be, lack of clearly defined policy frameworks with proper guidelines for poverty alleviation, political instability and macro economic dislocations, corruption and the politics of "capture and ineffective bureaucracy and institutional failures amongst a host of others, Dr. Mailafia further highlighted the major causes of poverty as involving inadequate access to employment opportunities, low investment in human capital and destruction of natural resources (environmental degradation and reduced productivity) amongst a host of others.

Thus, to rescue Nigeria from the vicious grip of poverty, NEEDS was inaugurated with the aim of reforming the government, growing the private sector and empowering the people, with the national aspiration to be in the league of the 20 leading economies in the world by the year 2020. NEEDS was conceptualised to serve as a catalyst for the attainment of the goal. It was first implemented as NEEDS 1 from 2004-2007 NEEDS 1 was based on four goals which are poverty reduction, wealth creation, employment generation and value re-orientation.

But, with the pervasive rate of poverty in the nation, especially in the rural areas where social services and infrastructure are limited or non-existent, women and households headed by women are frequently the most chronically poor within rural communities.

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), at the workshop, urged for the development of a coherent framework to address the challenges posed by poverty and in surmounting these challenges. The CDD intends to organised an anti-poverty summit in December 2007 or January 2008 with the idea of giving civil society the opportunity to present its memorandum on a more effective strategy and focus for NEEDS to the leadership of the Executive and the legislature at the federal and state levels.