By Adekunle Adekoya
When we talk of poverty, we think of it as the inability of a person, group of persons, or a social collective to meet basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter. The Encyclopaedia Brittanica describes poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs.”
Provision of basic needs — food, clothing, and shelter — has been the preoccupation of man ever since he began to form social collectives. Getting these things in sufficient quantities is a pillar of security in many societies where leaders are sensible, feel for, and empathise with the people they lead. In fact, it is the primary purpose of organised governance. In today’s Nigeria, it is obvious that basic needs are going out of the reach of the ordinary Nigerian with the passing of each day.
Yesterday, the National Bureau of Statitistics, NBS, released its Consumer Price Index report for the month of November, which indicated that the annual inflation rate rose to 21.47%, and is the highest in 17 years.
The NBS said in the report: “In November 2022, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 21.47%. This was 6.07% points higher compared to the rate recorded in November 2021, which was 15.40%. This means that in the month of November 2022, the general price level was 6.07% higher relative to November 2021.
“On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in November 2022 was 1.39%, this was 0.15% higher than the rate recorded in October 2022 (1.24%). This means that in the month of November 2022, the general price level was 0.15% higher relative to October 2022.“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months period ending November 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 18.37%, showing a 1.39% increase compared to 16.98% recorded in November 2021.”
Economists and others with quantitative skills can better understand the figures referred to above, but for the man and woman on the street, it is better understood by the saying: “Things tight everywhere.” Poverty is spreading at an alarming rate; everyone is calling or sending text messages to the other person and asking for financial assistance for one thing or the other.
I know things have never really been rosy in this country, but in my own time here, things have never been so bad. Poverty is advancing so furiously that even the population of “big men” have started to shrink. Of course, the middle class had been wiped out a long time ago, such that in Nigeria of today, you’re either rich or poor. The middle ground exists no more!
That is why, in the Nigerian context, we can no longer continue to look at poverty from the universal lens alone. We must look at various forms that poverty has taken, which has enabled the phenomenon to perpetuate and feed on itself. There is poverty of leadership of Nigeria, and it grew from the poverty of followership as well.
Nigeria, with a population of more than 200 million people, a diversity that showcases more than 400 linguistic groups, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of arable land, massive rivers, streams and lakes, with minerals added, has no business with poverty. Not in this world, ever! But what do we have?
Because of the poverty of leadership and followership, scores of millions of our fellow compatriots are finding it more and more difficult to eat more than once a day, if at all. Those who are eating are feeding on just what they can get, not what they desire to eat. How did we find ourselves at this pass? How can the masses of a the beautiful country called Nigeria be wallowing in such abject poverty?
How can the good people of this country continue to be treated like this by their own leaders, drawn from among their rank and file? Arable land is available, but there are no resources to cultivate them with and produce food in sufficient quantities using modern methods and inputs, thus making our farmers depend on the age-old farming methods used by my grandfather and his forebears when the population of our country was a fraction of what it is today.
Again, the issue cannot be poverty of ideas; the national development plans are splendid blueprints that somehow never got implemented as they should, leading to thousands of abandoned projects all over the country. It is also not about a lack of institutions to implement them — with more than 943 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs, and 541 state-owned corporations, the Federal Government must be one of the largest in the world.
We have not included the MDAs at the state level. This, I think, is the root of the problem. Institutions created to solve the poverty problem have ended up sustaining poverty. Too many cooks spoiling the broth, not so? Who will save Nigerians from the Nigerian problem? How do we break the vicious cycle and circle of poverty? President Buhari on Wednesday said he’s tried his best for the country. His successor will inherit a problem of leviathan proportions, and he had better be prepared for a very hard grind.
*Adekoya is a commentator on public issues
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