Nigeria may miss SDGs by 2030 —IBBU VC

The vice chancellor, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University {IBBU}, Lapai, Niger State, Professor Mohammed Maiturari, says Nigeria may not achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals {SDGs} by 2030 unless it embarks on drastic and concrete steps informed by rigorous research and scholarly exposure.

He stated this last week Wednesday while declaring open a two-day second  national conference of the university’s Department of Sociology, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, with the theme: ‘Human Development Issues in Nigeria and the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’.

He said, “At a time when every member of our battered nation should channel our energy, intellect and resources towards defeating the twin evils of poverty and corruption by insisting on good governance at all levels, some privileged elites are busy fanning the embers of intolerance, and hatred along primordial identities, thereby complicating and worsening an already deplorable situation.”

The vice chancellor, however, expressed delight that an array of highly distinguished professors and eminent scholars assembled for the conference from all over the country would address the nation’s developmental issues from various perspectives, as well as offer appropriate academic solutions that are suitable, feasible and implementable.

“We need to work together to bring out solutions that will bring us out of this doldrums and concentrate all our energies on issues we need to help our situation, because the country is in a quagmire, and we are backward in all the major indices of developments. That is why all hands have to be on the deck, so that we bring out policies and we channel our energies towards addressing issues,” he maintained.

Also in his presentation, the keynote speaker, Professor Jerome O. Gefu, a former executive director, National Animal Production Research Institute at Shika, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, said the world leaders at the United Nations, in New York in September 2015, adopted the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals {SDGs} as a sequel to the conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20, 2012.

He said the objective was to produce a set of universally acceptable goals that balances the three dimensions of sustainable development, namely: environmental, social, and economic, adding that the 2030 Agenda comprises 17 new Sustainable Development Goals {SDGs} often referred to as Global Goals, meant to guide policy and funding of member nations for the next 15 years, while pledging to tackle the indignity of poverty and put an end to it permanently worldwide.

Professor Gefu, however, said that for Nigeria, the starting pint is to attempt an evaluation of how well it has fared in the years of the MDGs so as to carry lessons learnt forward to the period of SDGs.

Gefu stressed that the story in Nigeria cannot be completely told in the affirmative, as he pointed out that  public domain information is completely lean in offering a balanced assessment of the performance, using universal yardstick against milestones reached.

He pointed out that the goals have not generated enough jobs and their effects on policy environment could be suggesting that the target would be difficult to meet.

Gefu, therefore, advocated a need for the government in Nigeria to build social infrastructure and provide sustainable access to enterprise finance, social protection while poverty eradication programmes need to be scaled up and better coordinated.

He said priority attention must be given to food security with special attention to animal production and the ongoing diversification in the agricultural sector, education and critical infrastructure such as power and roads.

Meanwhile, in his lead paper presentation, Professor Suleiman Mohammed of the University of Abuja said human development had become a critical issue in global discourse, largely due to the massive poverty, unemployment and hopelessness that have ravaged majority of the people, especially in the Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

In Nigeria, he said, the living condition of majority of the people has continued to deteriorate in spite of abundant human and material resources, adding that since the economic crisis of the 1980s and the failure of adjustment policies, majority of Nigeria’s poor live in destitution, while a tiny clique of people he perceived as parasites have been living a life of affluence.

“Infrastructural decay, failure of social services and sustained economic downturn and its repercussions have nurtured a near failed state, while the consequences have been widespread poverty, unemployment, destitution and socio-economic crisis in form of religious, ethnic and ethno-religious conflicts as well as insurgency, particularly Boko Haram in the North-East.”

He noted that there was a need for a revolutionary struggle at the national level to enthrone a just, humane and socialist society, while the neo-colonial state and its apparatus must be dismantled to enthrone a genuine fight against poverty, unemployment, access to health, education, social services and promotion of gender equality.