We must end poverty

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Poverty has been a scourge since time immemorial. It is a continuing affront to our sensibilities, our moral principles, and our very humanity. But it doesn›t have to be that way anymore. We live in an age of promise and opportunity, where technological advances, successful development experience and political will can be summoned to eliminate poverty – and in particular to end extreme poverty. Today, we can end poverty and free future generations from its devastating, tenacious grip.

This is not to say that we have not already seen promising results in the fight against poverty. We should never forget that extreme poverty is not just about living on less than N500 per day. It is about much more than being hungry, ill housed, and unable to properly care for and educate the next generation. Poverty is one of the forces militating against the social and economic development of Nigeria. The level of poverty in Nigeria is astronomically high and politically embarrassing considering the enormous human and mineral resources the country is endowed with and despite the huge resources successive government have committed to alleviate and or eradicate poverty, it seems no success has been achieved

There have been strategies that have been adopted by the various governments to alleviate poverty in Nigeria. These include: Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revolution, Better Life for Rural Women, Family Economic Advancement Programme. All the poverty alleviation programmes have not been successful due to inadequate funding, lack of proper coordination and commitments, poor design and evaluation of programmes etc.

I recommend that government should ensure that programmes of poverty eradication are well designed, evaluated and coordinated before they are carried out; fraudulent officials should be prosecuted to serve as deterrence to others handling poverty eradication. Poverty is also about vulnerability, humiliation, discrimination, exclusion and inequity. I have enduring images in my mind of the human face of poverty. Economic growth is associated with reducing poverty.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has described economic growth as a crucial means for expanding the substantive freedoms that people value. These freedoms are strongly associated with improvements in general living standards such as greater opportunities for people to become healthier, eat better and live longer. Growth generates virtuous circles of prosperity and opportunity.

To ensure that no one is denied universal human rights and basic economic opportunities, any new development agenda should focus on ensuring inclusive economic growth and reducing inequalities. Future growth will need to be based on an increasingly globalised world that offers new opportunities but also new challenges. Future growth will also need to be environmentally sustainable.

Poverty is the significant lack of money. Precise definitions of poverty are controversial; according to one definition, poverty is having so little money that one cannot pay for basic necessities, such as food and shelter. Sociologists study the effects of poverty. There are various ways to eradicate these issues: more employment opportunities, social security programs, uplift of rural masses, spread of education, social and political atmosphere. Participating in all these aspects would reduce the rate of poverty and hunger in the country and the world at large.

Adesokan Omolola

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The PDP spokesman recalled how the opposition party had on various occasions alerted that the APC government had ceded sovereignty over a large portion of our country to terrorists, “many of whom were imported into our country by the APC.”

He further stated: “From the video, in a brazen manner, terrorists as non-state actors boldly showed their faces, boasting, admitting and confirming their participation in the Kuje Prison break, some of whom were former prison inmates who were either jailed or awaiting trial for their previous terrorism act against our country.

“Nigerians can equally recall the confession by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the APC government knows the plans and whereabouts of the terrorists but failed to act.

According to Ologunagba, about 18,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists between 2020 and 2022 “as the criminals continue to be emboldened by the failures and obvious complicity of the APC and to which the PDP had always drawn attention.”

“This is not politics; this is about humanity and leadership, which leadership sadly and unfortunately is missing in our country at this time,” he said.

The PDP added that it is appalled by “the lame response by the apparently helpless, clueless and deflated Buhari Presidency, wherein it told an agonizing nation that President Buhari “has done all and even more than what was expected of him as Commander in Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military…”

“This is a direct admission of incapacity and failure by the Buhari Presidency and the APC. At such a time, in other climes, the President directly leads the charge and takes drastic measures to rescue and protect his citizens.

“In time of adversity, the President transmutes into Consoler-in-Chief to give hope and succour to the citizens. Painfully, Nigeria does not have a President who cares and can stand as Consoler-in-Chief to the citizens.

“It has now become very imperative for Nigerians to take note and realize that the only solution to this unfortunate situation is to hold the APC government accountable. We must come together as a people, irrespective of our political, ethnic and religious affiliations to resist the fascist-leaning tendencies of the APC administration.

Ologunagba called for an urgent meeting of the National Council of State to advise on the way to go over the nation’s worsening insecurity.

“Our nation must not fall. The resilient Nigerian spirit and ‘can-do- attitude’ must be rekindled by all to prevail on the President to immediately and without further delay, accede to the demand by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to convene a special session of the National Council of State to find a lasting solution since the President has, in his own admission, come to his wit’s end,” the PDP spokesman declared.

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