Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party has warned that if Nigeria’s rising multidimensional poverty is not dealt with, it will damage state capacity and effectiveness and therefore disarray economic and social policies.
Obi disclosed this in a statement on Thursday evening while reacting to the recent Nigerian Multidimensional Poverty Report.
He stated that it is 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.
Obi stated that the trend 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.
- “The rural part of Nigeria is trapped in abject poverty; we are leaving our children miserable and uneducated. 27% 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.
- “ The multidimensional Poverty Index is the best mirror of failure of governance in the country, in spite of earning trillions in oil revenues, in spite of borrowing trillions of naira for infrastructure development,” he said.
He added that almost half of Nigerians are poor and close to two-thirds of Nigerians do not have access to basic sanitation, access to basic education, lack basic nutrition, and do not visit hospitals.
- “It is a terrible disgrace and disservice to a country with our tremendous natural and human resources. 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.
- “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 the entire sub-Saharan Africa.
Government policy not impactful: He warned that Nigeria would still not have been able to reduce its poverty rate by any percentage because the policy of this administration has no impact on poverty and urged that 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.
- “We can wipe off multidimensional poverty in less than a decade. Let’s do it together, let us end the corruption and incompetence with our votes,” he stressed.
For the record: The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that 63% of persons living in Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor.
- 65% of the poor (86 million people) live in the north, while 35% (nearly 47 million) live in the south. Poverty levels across states vary significantly, with the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranging from a low of 27% in Ondo to a high of 91% in Sokoto.
- Over half of the population of Nigeria is multidimensionally poor and cooks with dung, wood, or charcoal, rather than clean energy. High deprivations also appeared nationally in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity, and housing.
