Like a wrist watch the wearer of which does not need a mirror to see the time, the evidence of acute poverty in Nigeria is as clear as a nine-month pregnancy.
The saying that ‘he who feels it knows it’ aptly captures the reality of the recent ranking by Steve Hanke that Nigeria is the 6th most miserable country on the globe.
Hanke’s misery rating came months after a damning report in June last year by Brooking Institution that Nigeria had overtaken India as the nation with the highest number of extremely poor people. The report said that the number of Nigerians in extreme poverty increases by six people every minute.
While the goose pimples raised by Hanke’s ranking were yet to disappear, a global rating has again categorised Nigeria as one of the countries facing serious food crisis.
According to the 2019 Global Report on Food Crisis released last Wednesday in Brussels, of the 143 million people likely to slip into the crisis state, Nigeria ranked second, just below Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the list of eight countries with the largest number of people in the stressed phase of the food insecurity chain.
The report also revealed that Nigeria and seven other countries house two-third of the world’s hungry people.
It is also on record that Nigeria is ranked second country in the world where open defection is practised. Statistics by the UN-Habitat estimates that 67 percent of the Nigerian population does not have basic sanitation; 26 percent practices open defecation; 33 percent is without clean water while 87 percent does not have basic hygiene facilities.
In all of this, Cynicism has been the reaction from government as groups sympathetic to government have chosen to deny the authenticity of the reports.
Year-in-year-out, Nigerians have continued to provide for themselves in spite of government. Although it is enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the main priorities of elected government shall be protection of lives and property, successive governments have continued to fail in this regard.
Kenneth Ojiugo, a banker, told BDSUNDAY that “The idea of looking at everything from political point of view could be dangerous for Nigeria. At the time the report was released, saying that Nigeria was the poverty headquarters of the world, government said it was masterminded by political enemies trying to paint it black in the eyes of the international community ahead of the elections. Now they have won a re-election, who could possibly be responsible for the damning Misery Index and the latest global food crisis report that raised a red flag on Nigeria? We cannot just be petty and hide our heads in the sand like an ostrich when we are supposed to take action and this habit of always pointing fingers and blaming others for our own errors and inefficiency cannot help us.”
A few days ago, Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, advised the Federal Government to find solution to the high level of poverty in the country, saying it is extreme poverty that increases insecurity in the land.
Afenifere, which spoke through its publicity secretary, Yinka Odumakin, said there was the need for government to first address the issue of poverty before it could find solution to insecurity.
“It is very important for the government to address the level of poverty and human misery in Nigeria. If you look at some revelations that have been coming out in recent time, we are now one of the countries where life is miserable in the world.”
According to him, “Today, we are now the country of almajiris and the government is not doing anything about it beyond somebody going to the markets to distribute N5,000. What is the meaning of that? Many people are jobless and that is why they are committing crime. You know, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop.”
He expressed fears that crime rate will continue to rise as long as government refuses to address the level of human misery in the country.
Last Thursday, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the northern socio-cultural group, had also condemned increasing wave of kidnapping and killing by gunmen in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna states and other parts of the country.
The group blamed the Federal Government for the high incidence of social ills in the country, saying that it was the lopsided appointments by the current administration that may have been responsible for the upsurge.
Muhammad Biu, spokesman for the ACF, said: “The ACF and, indeed, Nigerians are disturbed by reports of the spate of kidnapping of innocent people on the highways and frequent attacks on villages by some bandits, which have led to the loss of hundreds of innocent lives, particularly in the northern part of the country.
“The recent frequent kidnapping incidents and attacks on the people, especially along the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway and many villages in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina and Kaduna states as well as many parts of the country are cruel, barbaric and inhuman,” Biu said.
Last week, Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, while speaking at an economic summit in Kaduna, expressed concern about the high rate of poverty in the North, urging northern governors to wake up to address the problem.
Dangote pointedly observed that 60 percent of northerners lived in extreme poverty.
The businessman also said: “While the overall social economic consideration in the country is a cause for concern, the regional indicators are very alarming. In the north-western and north-eastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty.
“It is instructive to know that the 19 northern states, which account for over 54 percent of the country’s population and 70 percent of its landmass, collectively generated only 21 percent of the total sub-national internally generated revenue in 2017.”
Balarabe Musa, a former governor of old Kaduna State, supporting Dangote’s position, said: “…our governors are part and parcel of our problem, especially in the area of corruption. These governors are engaged in massive stealing, corruption and waste of public resources.
“The North certainly has no business with poverty but we are certainly not making progress with the kind of leadership we have both at the federal level and in the various northern states today.”
Reacting to the Hanke’s Misery Index ranking, The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) had said it was “fallacious, despicable and of no consequence whatsoever”.
Dismissing the ranking in a press statement signed by Niyi Akinsiju, its chairman and Cassidy Madueke, secretary, the group said the ranking was not a true reflection of the situation on ground in this country, and that data for the survey must have been collated from old and archaic sources.
“A cursory look at the explanatory note by Steve Hanke in the Forbes Magazine in which he revealed that the index was calculated using economic indices like unemployment, inflation and interest rates banks charge on loans, show how wrong his conclusion was,” it said.
According to the BMO, “the index is said to be that of 2018 but the country recorded a number of positives in the same year on the economic front. It was the year that Nigeria had a major decline in inflation figure so much so that the rate is now 11.37percent. It was the culmination of a landmark 18-month consecutive decline to a level that is one of the lowest in Africa.
“We also know that a lower inflation rate has a way of impacting positively on banks’ lending rates and that’s exactly what has happened with the recent reduction in Monetary Policy Rate, yet the index scored Nigeria lower than some countries ravaged by war!”
Also reacting to the global report on food crisis which included Nigeria among countries that suffered most from high levels of food insecurity in the world in 2018, BMO dismissed it with a wave of the hand, saying it was “totally off the mark, unverifiable and unreliable.”
AGOMUO ZEBULON, CHUKA UROKO, OBINNA EMELIKE, AMAKA EWUZIE-ANAGOR AND BUNMI BAILEY
