The Presidential
Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi is optimistic that Nigeria can
wipe off its multidimensional poverty in less than a decade.
In a
Facebook statement on Friday, the former Anambra State governor posited that
the rural part of Nigeria is trapped in abject poverty, adding that the
nation is leaving its children, miserable and uneducated.
Reeling out stats, Mr Obi wrote that “27 percent of school-age children are out of school and poor, 29 percent of all school-aged children are not attending school, and 94 percent out of school children are very poor.”
According
to him, the Multidimensional Poverty Index is the best mirror of the failure of
governance in the country, “in spite of earning trillions in oil revenue, in
spite of borrowing trillion naira for infrastructure development, almost half
of Nigerians are poor and close to two-third of Nigerians do not have access to
basic sanitation, access to basic education, lack basic nutrition and do not
visit hospitals”.
He
said it is a terrible disgrace and disservice to a country with tremendous
natural and human resource.
“The
political economy of this report should be made clear to every Nigerian voter
because what it simply means is that the government is not working.
“It
means that the state is working for the few, and not for all the citizens of
the country. It means that the future is terrible for every Nigerian – young or
old, rich or poor.
“The
trending of multidimensional poverty if not arrested immediately will damage
state capacity and effectiveness and therefore disarray economic and social
policies that will reverse the trend in the future.
“If we combine atrocious fiscal decline with grand and pervasive corruption and the level of incompetence of public leadership to such generalized poverty, we will end up a completely collapsed state, thrown back to the state of nature.
Unless the situation is arrested, with our population estimated to reach 400
million in the next 28 years, Nigeria would become a security risk to entire Sub-Saharan Africa.
“This
report tells a story of the failure of the economic policy of the government. The
failure of the government to invest in basic social and human infrastructure and
the lack of commitment to the well-being of ordinary Nigerians, especially those
in rural communities is heart-breaking.
“How
on earth is it that 63 percent of Nigerians do not have access to the most
basic sanitation and nutrition? How come 63 percent of our citizens cannot
approach a clinic or health center within two hours?
“The
World Bank assessment of poverty in Nigeria in 2022 makes it clear that
additional 5.1m Nigerians became poor this year. even if there was no pandemic
and the war in Ukraine, Nigeria would still not have been able to reduce its
poverty rate by any percentage because the policy administration has no impact
on poverty.
“It
is now time to end politics as usual, time to disband the army of greedy and
self-serving politicians in Abuja and elect those who are connected to the
people and those who share the pains and deprivations of the working and
unemployed youths, abandoned women and deprived children across Nigeria,” the
LP flagbearer asserted.
Obi
said he will disrupt this trajectory of failure and “wickedness in high places
across Nigeria and give Nigerians back their country so that every child will
have access to good schools, good drinking water, good sanitation, good health
care, and their parents' good jobs and the joy of being a citizen of a country
that is lifting millions from poverty into shared prosperity”.
He
was of the opinion that if China lifted 750 million from poverty in about 20
years and if India reduced poverty from 50 percent to 20 percent in about 15
years, we could do even better.
The
Labour Party’s presidential candidate reiterated that he is confident, Nigeria
can wipe off multidimensional poverty in less than a decade.
He
urged Nigerians to join him in his quest to end the corruption and incompetence
with votes at the polls come 2023.
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