As Jigawa Confronts Poverty Cycle [analysis].

from All Africa

Byline: Taiwo Olawale

Lagos - The level of poverty in Jigawa State is mind boggling and years of misgovernance have added a sad tale to the phenomenon.

There are attempts to change the statsuquo and force the hands of progress on the teeming mass of the people through a conscious strategy of the government.

Mallam Adamu (not real names) is a very old man. His wife, Halima is just as old and also blind. They both live in one of the remote villages in the North Eastern corner of Jigawa state. Because of their age and perhaps Halima's disability, they are both unemployed. As part of their religious obligations and the good old African tradition of taking care of one's aged parents, their children did not leave them to the mercies of age and sickness. But because the children no longer live in the village, two of them sent a child each to take care of Mallam Adamu and his wife in the village.

Adamu's first son sent nine year-old Muhammadu while another son sent Abu, a twelve year-old. These two young boys now take care of their aged grand parents. Now, there is a snag: the two boys are completely in charge. Their parents are too poor to send money. So, the boys are supposed to be the bread winners for their grandparents. They would have to work to take care of themselves and their grandparents. This effectively ruled out schooling. But what kind of work can two unskilled young boys do? None. They therefore go out every morning to beg for money and food to take care of themselves and their grandparents.

The Adamu family represents one of the poorest of the poor in the village and indeed, the state as a whole. In his old age, Adamu lives in one of the poorest conditions one can imagine. His children have not fared any better as they can hardly take care of themselves and their families. And now, their grandchildren have been caught in the same circle from which they may never break out. Adamu's story is the story of almost all poor families in the country. Over the years, the poor seem to only get poorer. For most of them, life has remained a history of nightmares. And, breaking the circle of poverty is the biggest challenge any government in the state is bound to face.

It is perhaps in realisation of this that Governor Sule Lamido, in his inaugural speech on the 29th of May 2007, had declared the elimination of some of these historical nightmares of the talakawa one of the cornerstones of his administration. This, he had declared, would be part of a new democratic humanism built on the philosophy of the late defender of talakawa, Mallam Aminu Kano.

According to the Governor, life for the poor has "been a sad chronicle of unfulfilled promises, dashed hopes and unrealised expectations." It was within this context that he declared a new social policy which would take care of the physically challenged. Then, he had declared, "Our research has shown the utter difficulty of deciding which of the many nightmares of the common people can be consigned into the dustbin of history at a sustainable financial cost. In resolving this puzzle, one has taken note of the grim existential reality of those who, in addition to the general material poverty of the majority of our people, are physically challenged."

A lot has happened since that declaration and the country has generally hailed the social security policy. Now, 150 physically challenged people in each of the 27 local governments in the state collect the survival allowance of N7, 000.00 monthly. But, like the Governor noted, the physically challenged form only a small fraction of the poor in the state. Besides, it is obvious that the programme for this group needed to be expanded to properly empower them for more challenges. Then, the nightmares of the next group of the poorest of the poor must be tackled. It was time to confront the nightmares of people like Adamu who live at the bottom of the poverty table.

This group may not wait for too long as the state government has concluded plans to tackle their peculiar cases. According to Dr. Aminu Abdullahi, the Secretary to the state Government (SSG), the government is investing in the Federal Government's Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme to break the circle of poverty amongst the poorest of the poor.

He noted that studies have shown that the children of the very poor are most likely to be poor themselves. This, he said, is largely due to the inability of the very poor to give their children any form of education. "If poverty is a disease, ignorance is the virus that spreads it", he said. Based on these findings, he said the government is adopting the CCT programme to help the very poor acquire education as a way of freeing them from the clutches of poverty.

The SSG further explained that the government has earmarked over N100 million for the scheme this year noting that under the scheme, "the poorest families are identified by communities and the government pays the families to enable them send their children to school. This way, the families are empowered, the children go to school and they get an opportunity to break the circle of poverty."

Shedding more light on the programme, Tijjani Inuwa, the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Directorate of Guidance, Counseling and Empowerment told THISDAY that the CCT is a fairly popular programme across the world. He said it is the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) that adopted it to the peculiar Nigerian situation under the Basic Income Guarantee programme.

He said the essence of the programme is to get the children of the extremely poor to go to school. "In very poor households, children are the major bread winners or important parts of the bread winning teams. So, the families cannot afford to send them to school because if they do, it would adversely affect bread winning efforts in the family. In such families, poverty tends to persist because ignorance and poverty go hand in hand. To help the families fight poverty, they are being encouraged to send their children to school. To assist them to do this, a stipend is paid to the family to replace what the child or children would normally earn for the family", he said.

A family with one child is paid N1,500.00 per month for one year while a family with two to three children get N3,000.00. And, for a family with more than three children, the CCT programme pays N5, 000.00 per month to enable the family release the children to go to school. In addition to the monthly stipends however, the CCT also saves N7, 500.00 in a micro-finance bank in the name of the family every month for the one year duration of the programme. During the one year period, the head of the family is trained in a trade or vocation to make him self reliant at the end of the programme. And, at the end of the twelve month duration of the programme, the money saved in the name of the family is given as initial capital to the family to start the trade or vocation learnt.

"For each benefiting family, the programme would run for only one year. Money would be paid to the families as I explained earlier only on condition that school attendance by the child or children is up to 75% in the month. As regards the training of the head of the family, this is transferable depending on certain conditions. For example, if the father is not trainable due to age or infirmity, the mother could be trained. If she is not trainable either, the eldest child in the family may be trained. At the end of the programme, the idea is to ensue the family is empowered to be able to keep child or children in school", the PS explained.

Asked whether the families may not be tempted to use the saved up capital to take care of personal problems rather than investing it, Inuwa said the state has set up committees from the state level to community levels to monitor the implementation of the programme. He said arrangements have been made by the local committees to introduce the beneficiaries to potential customers as soon as they start their businesses. "For example, they would be introduced to council chairmen so that LGs can patronise them. They would not be left on their own. We would assist them until they can stand on their feet as entrepreneurs", he noted.

One thousand people are to benefit from the pilot. The beneficiaries are chosen from ten local governments. Inuwa said criteria used for selecting the ten benefiting local governments include school enrolment and attendance, health facilities and access as well as economic activities. He said the ten local governments selected have very low figures in all the areas considered. In the ten councils, ten communities were also identified. And, each community identified ten of the poorest families. At community level, attention was paid to vulnerable groups such as widows, the sick and the old.

Mallam Adamu was picked by his community as one of the ten poorest in his village. The day the state committee visited Adamu's household as part of its verification tour, his condition drew so much sympathy that the members took some immediate actions to reduce the effects of acute poverty on the family. The council Chairman who accompanied the committee undertook there and then to help the family make the house more habitable. So, Adamu is now one of the one thousand people to benefit from the CCT and his two grandchildren would stop begging and go to school.

But what happens after? Liberating one thousand people out of millions of people suffering from abject poverty does not seem to be much. Inuwa explained that the CCT programme is in its pilot. He said the state would run it in conjunction with NAPEP only for one year. After that, the government intends to continue in line with its resolve to free its citizens from the bitter clutches of poverty.

"Even before NAPEP came up with CCT, the state had been looking at various ways of helping the people break the shackles of poverty. Based on the popularity of the social security scheme, many NGOs and international organisations had taken interest in the state's fight against poverty. So, a lot of programmes had been considered. But the CCT presented an opportunity to take care of the poorest of the poor. This is why the government has taken the programme very seriously and we are working towards making it a huge success."