Why Are The Majority Poor?

Linda Chika Amuka

Successive military and civilian dispensations assumed power profusely professing intent to salvage.  Over the years, we have had leadership that were habitually deceptive, that is to say, the leadership was a cult or dupes, who on grabbing power, disengaged themselves from constitutional social contract of harnessing common resources and equally redistributing same to the populace.

The Nigerian leadership rather than being a solution has remained a cog in the wheel of development of social and economic structures which has resulted in the perpetual impoverishment of the hapless citizenry.  In ordinary terms, our leaders ascend to power on the vacuous promise that they will elevate the living standards of Nigerians but rather have always diverted such opportunities to personal enrichment.

As a precursor to their elevation to power, they feign ignorance to the state of social and economic disrepair, they traverse the length and breadth of their political constituencies promising heaven on earth.  The reoccurrence of this officially perennial high-handedness has become worrisome because of its multifariously deleterious effect on the social and economic status of the populace.  In other words, our leaders have made it a duty that on no account must the people they lead heave a sigh of relief.  The systematic under-development of the social and economic structures is designed to convert the citizens’ rights into privileges and to bring about a continuity of the depending syndrome.  The tenacity with which the leadership had held back development and welfare programmes is evident in the acute deprivation suffered by the people of this country.

In essence, it is important to note that the leadership is in the habit of making sure that the people they lead will not see the light of prosperity, such that the master-servant relationship will continue in perpetuity.

The level of leadership-induced poverty is basically unacceptable, considering the enormity of our commonwealth.  It can be seen that the leadership is holding the populace in deliberate derision, amounting to contempt and human indignity making sure that the majority will remain in avoidable degradation.

The question in the mouth of many has remained how 10 per cent of the populace has continued to be recycled and hijack power for the sake of depriving the majority in this country.  The answer is that the leadership has continually deliberately held on to its devices and methods of impoverishing the majority. The difference between America and Nigeria is that they utilise their resources in the interest of their citizenry such that welfare programmes of sort are initiated to make sure that a minimum standard of living is maintained which can prevent minor to major crimes.  They develop and maintain infrastructure rather than auctioning them. They make sure that their citizens are accorded their rights of decent by subsidizing economic and social services. They make sure that provision of employment is a major determinant of economic growth. They measure the performance of government by the level of happiness generated among the people.  They don’t allow anybody any excuse to commit crime, which is the reason their security is uncompromisingly strict and is at variance with our security such that their method is crime preventive while ours is crime inventive.

The lamentable state of poverty and deprivation in this country needs to stop, because we cannot continue to deceive the people of this country longer than we have done.  If government is serious about lifting the living standards of the people, it will remove the land  use decrees, it will make education free at all levels, it will make loans compulsorily affordable to farmers, it will reduce the price of fuel, it will enhance the casualty centres of the so-called federal medical centres.  It will liberalise importation such that goods and services will be cheap.

Our industries are deliberately moribund even when the government had closed importation of goods to encourage their growth.  It is no longer tenable that free flow of importation is the albatross of our industries.  The textile industries at Isolo, which were closed down due to non-availability of raw materials should be encouraged because they are heavy employers of labour.

This country can afford to lavish incentives at the economic sector and make this economy subsidy-based.  President Yar’Adua must understand that there is no sense in auctioning the commonwealth of this country which is one of the reasons we are where we are today.

Obasanjo’s economic witch-doctors told him that he will succeed by alienating the citizenry through privatisation. We now know the damages done to our economy through such disturbing us with noise of how many roads they have built as if it is their money that is being used.  Their primary concern should be how to put food compulsorily on every table, how to generate employment, how to create an enabling environment for self-employment and how to develop human resources.  The people of this country are hungry, deprived, cheated, abandoned because of greed of a few people.  This country can afford to employ every graduate; this country can afford to look after the elder; we can afford to subsidise petroleum to even twenty naira per litre.

If we refuse to do these things, the rate of crime will continue to rise, until it will lead to a revolution, we are undoubtedly close to that now.

The activities of government at all levels are at variance with the needs of the people and that is to say, there is total disregard for the living standard of the populace.

The Central Bank in any developed country is responsible for control of fiscal policies that can generate employment based on the right data.

The CBN cannot continue to give vague reasons as to why inflation cannot be controlled.  The double digit interest rates, on the excuse that depositors must demand return on deposits is the bane of the economy and the crux of the matter.  This is mere abuse of our sensibilities and collaboration of interested parties because if the cost of fund is brought to single digit, productivity will rise, employment will increase and nothing will stop this imaginary inflation from coming down.  The excess liquidity is neither here nor there because this economy is not financially saturated  in the first place.

The reduction of monetary policy rate when not long ago the CBN said there was excess liquidity is admittance of monetary policy confusion all in the bid to avoid reduction of cost of funds.  It is wrong to keep huge sums of money in foreign reserves or in the AFC which can be used to develop infrastructure.  If there is excess liquidity, why don’t we utilise it positively?  Why are the people still very poor?  Why were they failed banks not bailed out instead of being eliminated?  The financial theorem of the CBN is a deliberate misconception to keep the people in perpetual poverty.  The government should discountenance monetisation of everything and concentrate on enhancing the agricultural and industrial sectors and, at the same time, retrieve all the infrastructures they have put private hands, because we are not developed to the extent of privatizing and monetizing this fragile economy.  By so doing government has admitted incapability to manage resources, in other words, government is a failure by abdicating its responsibilities to privately owned corporations which are only interested in maximum profit and as a result, the people are poorer.

Amuka is a student of Anambra State University, Awka