Eradicating Poverty: We Need Big Ideas, Not Buckpassing, By 'Tope Fasua
While debates have sparked and now rage over the embarrassing rate of multidimensional poverty as reported by none other than the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), it behooves me to humbly intervene in the controversial issue at hand. to make the hype positive. For as usual, the raging debate has a chance to die down like others before it, with nothing gained and with Nigeria remaining where it is or even worse, when, as they say, "it's worth the hard to never let a crisis go to waste". The penchant for letting crises get lost is part of the reason we are where we are today. It's generational so even young Nigerians just hang around older ones, insult and curse them, even beat them up where they can, but never ensuring that real and considered gains come out of the crises that they stir up or that are pushed. on them.
As I expressed in a Channels TV interview earlier, the debate itself – much like the data that 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor – is a government goal. Honestly, I have my doubts about how bad poverty is in Nigeria, and even whether the people of Nigeria are what we say they are, without politics. We know how our politicians have always pumped up their riding populations to win elections and get bigger federal allocations. In hotly contested elections, Nigeria was unable to justify even 50% of the population it claims, if we are to extrapolate. However, multidimensional poverty is not only about income poverty, but also about access to the basic factors that add value to life – schools, libraries, health facilities, sports facilities, parks and so on. In this regard, yes, many Nigerians do not have access to them and indeed successive governments have failed to provide many of these amenities at scales that can be considered adequate and sustainable. The argument about who is responsible for poverty – between the federal government and the state governments – is unnecessary and unproductive. President Buhari's administration waited until the end of his term to have this debate in the first place. Maybe we can salvage something from the fuss.
If we need to determine which segment of government should be responsible for lifting the nation out of poverty, we can look at our structure of government and what the constitution mandates for each level of government. Controversy remains over whether the federal government should take 66 points and leave about 21 to the states. There is however the fluidity of these exclusive and contemporary elements as we have seen with the energy sector, the transport sector (trains) and so on. We cannot hide under constitutionality, however easy it is to dodge the real issues. The same constitution initially provided for local government autonomy and guaranteed LGs a "federal unity", but governors came forward and vitiated this position by creating so-called "joint accounts" through which they collect funds federal funds for local government into one that they control and pay what they want. Most of our states have not held local government council elections, preferring to run this level of government by proxy. What is evident now is that the states have not shown enough prowess, dexterity, commitment, expertise, fidelity and creativity to govern and administer local governments, just like our federal government has been too weak to set the pace for state governments and define a global vision. Of course, local governments, where the rubber meets the tarmac, in terms of development, are entirely absent.
Despite the structural challenges – many of which will continue to transform and never go away – I think we should focus on the big ideas instead. No constitution is perfect, which is why Americans have amended their constitution 27 times since 1776. And many nations around the world have grown despite an imperfect constitution - from China where they run a one-party state, to India – where local governments are also listed as “federating units” – to some of our North African neighbors who are already integrating with Europe and of course the Arab world through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) , in terms of infrastructure and trade. I believe we need to push back on this idea of summarizing every small and simple thin...
While debates have sparked and now rage over the embarrassing rate of multidimensional poverty as reported by none other than the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), it behooves me to humbly intervene in the controversial issue at hand. to make the hype positive. For as usual, the raging debate has a chance to die down like others before it, with nothing gained and with Nigeria remaining where it is or even worse, when, as they say, "it's worth the hard to never let a crisis go to waste". The penchant for letting crises get lost is part of the reason we are where we are today. It's generational so even young Nigerians just hang around older ones, insult and curse them, even beat them up where they can, but never ensuring that real and considered gains come out of the crises that they stir up or that are pushed. on them.
As I expressed in a Channels TV interview earlier, the debate itself – much like the data that 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor – is a government goal. Honestly, I have my doubts about how bad poverty is in Nigeria, and even whether the people of Nigeria are what we say they are, without politics. We know how our politicians have always pumped up their riding populations to win elections and get bigger federal allocations. In hotly contested elections, Nigeria was unable to justify even 50% of the population it claims, if we are to extrapolate. However, multidimensional poverty is not only about income poverty, but also about access to the basic factors that add value to life – schools, libraries, health facilities, sports facilities, parks and so on. In this regard, yes, many Nigerians do not have access to them and indeed successive governments have failed to provide many of these amenities at scales that can be considered adequate and sustainable. The argument about who is responsible for poverty – between the federal government and the state governments – is unnecessary and unproductive. President Buhari's administration waited until the end of his term to have this debate in the first place. Maybe we can salvage something from the fuss.
If we need to determine which segment of government should be responsible for lifting the nation out of poverty, we can look at our structure of government and what the constitution mandates for each level of government. Controversy remains over whether the federal government should take 66 points and leave about 21 to the states. There is however the fluidity of these exclusive and contemporary elements as we have seen with the energy sector, the transport sector (trains) and so on. We cannot hide under constitutionality, however easy it is to dodge the real issues. The same constitution initially provided for local government autonomy and guaranteed LGs a "federal unity", but governors came forward and vitiated this position by creating so-called "joint accounts" through which they collect funds federal funds for local government into one that they control and pay what they want. Most of our states have not held local government council elections, preferring to run this level of government by proxy. What is evident now is that the states have not shown enough prowess, dexterity, commitment, expertise, fidelity and creativity to govern and administer local governments, just like our federal government has been too weak to set the pace for state governments and define a global vision. Of course, local governments, where the rubber meets the tarmac, in terms of development, are entirely absent.
Despite the structural challenges – many of which will continue to transform and never go away – I think we should focus on the big ideas instead. No constitution is perfect, which is why Americans have amended their constitution 27 times since 1776. And many nations around the world have grown despite an imperfect constitution - from China where they run a one-party state, to India – where local governments are also listed as “federating units” – to some of our North African neighbors who are already integrating with Europe and of course the Arab world through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) , in terms of infrastructure and trade. I believe we need to push back on this idea of summarizing every small and simple thin...
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