2023: CSO Tasks Aspirants On Poverty Reduction

A civil society organisation under the aegis of PUSH Africa on Monday challenged aspirants for the 2023 general elections at all levels to focus their governance agenda on halting the spread of poverty in the country.
The CSO stated that this could be achieved through the development of people-oriented programmes and policies.
The founder of PUSH Africa, Doris Egbaramen, stated these while flagging off the ‘Do-One-Thing’ initiative, aimed at promoting socio-economic justice for the poor.
According to her, available data show that about 95.1 million Nigerians, close to half of Nigeria’s population still live below the poverty line.
Egbaramen said, “As political activities towards next year’s elections heat up, prospective leaders who are aspiring to vie for various political offices should give priority attention to the raging increase in the number of poor people in the country.
“They should show to the Nigerian people that they have a practical and actionable plan to tackle pervasive and deepening poverty in their various constituencies.
“This current situation is disturbing and if we are not intentional about this issue, the statistics will get worse and the consequences in terms of negative socio-economic impact and underdevelopment will keep getting worse. For the sake of the current and future generations, we cannot allow this to happen.
“Poverty is linked to many negative vices such as inadequate nutrition and food insecurity, lack of access to health care, insecurity, homelessness, unsafe neighbourhoods and it is also linked to the ugly head called corruption which adversely impacts our nation’s wellbeing.”