It is no longer news that Nigeria is currently the poverty headquarters of the world. In a recent report by the Brooklings Institution, Nigeria is said to have overtaken India as the country with the highest number of extreme poor people in the world.
According to the report, Nigeria now has over 87 million people living in poverty and every minute, six more Nigerians become poor.
In 2016 The National Bureau of Statistics had painted a worse picture when it reported that no fewer than 112 million Nigerians live below the poverty line.
Why this high rate of poverty in Nigeria? Three major reasons have been deduced by experts. They are income inequality and unemployment, ethnic conflict/ civil unrest, political instability and corruption. It is therefore expected that any responsible government both at the federal, state and local government level who sincerely wants to tackle poverty will start by tackling these key problems. Such government should invest greatly in human capital development and prioritize infrastructural development as these will increase economic growth and of course reduce poverty.
On this premise, it is therefore surprising that the federal government decided that the best way to alleviate poverty in the country is to share recovered looted fund to some selected poor people. The federal government had indicated that the $322 million repatriated from the accounts of former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha in Switzerland will be distributed to “vulnerable Nigerians”. The Federal Government had said it would commence the disbursement of the fund through Conditional Cash Transfers to 302,000 poor households in 19 states this July. The states include: Niger, Kogi, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Kwara, Cross River, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarrawa, Anambra and Internally Displaced Persons Camps (IDPS) will benefit from the fund leaving 17 other states with nothing.
Not a few Nigerians have expressed concerns on not only the choice of sharing the fund but on the criteria for selecting prospective beneficiaries and their states. Questions like how will government prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the so-called 302,000 names on the list are truly the right people? Won’t there be ‘ghost’ poor people involved? Won’t there be cases of funds diversion to politicians’ accounts? What is even the guarantee that the so-called 302,000 poor households are not cardholders of political parties, especially at a time that elections are just around the corner? For how long will the benefiting households receive the monthly stipend of N5, 000 each? What happens to the poor people when the recovered money is exhausted?, have been asked.
One reason for high poverty rate in the country as earlier stated is ethnic conflict/ civil unrest. Is it not worrisome that if the federal government insists on going on with the fund’s sharing formula where some geopolitical zones have more benefiting states than the other, that it may create some bad blood among the citizens and might even lead to more conflict or unrest in the country?
It is therefore advisable that the federal government listens to various advices given by different people on the controversial issue. It’s true that many people in the country are hungry and in need of “stomach infrastructure” but is giving them peanut at the end of the month a lasting solution to their predicament? Come to think of it, what can N5000 really do for a family of five or six in today’s Nigeria? Besides, is life all about having food to eat? What of other need like education, health care, water and others? So why not create the enabling environment that will make these poor Nigerians especially the young and strong ones be gainfully employed and thereby being useful to themselves, their communities and the country at large? What about teaching them how to fish instead of always giving them fish?
It has been often said that when the country eventually gets it right with the issue of poor, there will be an economic boom and virtually every other sector of the economy will start to thrive. Nigerian youth are very creative, hardworking and industrious. What they need basically is constant power supply and a little support from government and they will turn things around positively for the country. So instead of spending the over N100bn on temporary palliative, why not invest it on power project and make sure that it is completed? Or rather as some people have suggested, pump it into the moribund Ajaokuta Steel company which is said to have the capacity to employ ten thousand graduates in addition to thousands of other junior workers and at the same time manufacture steel for the country’s need. What about plunging it into agriculture which will not only ensure food sufficiency in the country but also create plenty of jobs for the people?
So, it good that the federal government wants to help the poor but the right thing should be done. The recovered fund should be invested in a project(s) that can make more impact on the poor, project that will lift more people out of poverty across the nation. It is also important that the citizens be informed of how the millions of dollars repatriated from Switzerland since 2005 and other recovered looted funds have been utilized. The monies belong to the people and they deserve proper accountability.

Calista Ezeaku