The poverty narrative: Federal versus state governments, By Dakuku Peterside

I vehemently believe that Nigerians do not care about who is responsible for poverty; all they they want is for it to be addressed. It is the serial failure of different levels of government to provide the building blocks of poverty eradication that has led to the presently deepening immiseration. The present narrative about which tier of government has front-loaded poverty in Nigeria is simply political, unhealthy, and diversionary.

Poverty is all around us. We see it in all aspects of our lives. It is so ubiquitous that it has become ingrained in our collective psyche. We seem to have accepted it as inevitable and use it to explain our personal and collective realities. It is one condition many people work and pray hard to overcome, yet we seem not to make any meaningful progress against it. We have more poor people now than at any other time in our history as a country. Poor Nigerians are in the majority, from big cities to rural neighbourhoods. Even the minority well-off people suffer from the “poverty tax” levied on them by poor relatives, family members and friends. Statistically, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world in 2018.

There is a famous saying in out country, although an untested hypothesis or supposition, that if you do not want a matter dealt with conclusively, set up a committee to consider it, and this will naturally lead to several other committees that we look into the same issue, ad infinitum. The same applies to an issue nobody wants to take responsibility for or address. The most popular strategy, evasive as it is, is to blame some phantom body for not resolving the issue, which will also blame another body, and at the end, nobody will take responsibility for the issue, and nothing will be done about it. This script has found expression in the blame game between the federal and state governments on the seemingly unconquerable affliction of poverty, which is now cancerous in Nigeria. One can easily argue that more people die because of poverty than any other cause in Nigeria.

There is a consensus by all Nigerians on our puzzling state of poverty. All available data point to the fact that most Nigerians live below the poverty line. However, the ordinary man’s experience on the street is hellish. In early 2018, Nigeria ingloriously overtook India as the country with the most significant number of extremely poor people. The 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index survey reveals that 63% of Nigerians (133 million people) are poor on several levels and in a multiplicity of ways. Also, the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022 for India shows that as many as 415 million people exited multidimensional poverty in the country in 15 years (2005/06 to 2019/21), with the incidence of poverty declining steeply from 55.1% to 16.4%. More worrisome is the fact that while global poverty is reducing, the reverse is the situation here, as more Nigerians are migrating towards poverty. Why is this the case?

The first reason is that poverty has become weaponised as a form of control of the people by a minority elite that is feeding fat on Nigeria. This political and business elite have never had it so good, and they are bent on preserving the status quo. They perpetuate poverty through corruption, poor governance, poor leadership, lack of infrastructure, lack of access to quality education, poor quality health care, the dearth of economic opportunities, lack of shelter, hunger and food insecurity, and weak moral and ethical standards. The summation of the generally poor state of everything in Nigeria is the poverty of the majority. Even the morbid fear of poverty by some in the elite forces them to engage in primordial and wanton accumulation of wealth, without corresponding value creation, thereby leaving the system warped.

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There is no genuine commitment by the leadership class to allow for the “prosperity of all” and reduce poverty in Nigeria. The local governments and the states (subnational entities) are the nearest to the people and are expected to be at the forefront of confronting poverty within their areas. All their policies and programmes must be tied to growth and development that reduces poverty and improves the living standards of residents. State governments must champion economic growth and human capital development within their domains and ensure that the factors of production are utilised efficiently and effectively for productivity and growth and, where possible, the wealth created should be distributed in a manner that reduces the extreme poverty of some of the people. Poverty exists where there is low productivity. States must provide enabling environments for production and create opportunities for their residents to be optimally productive. In Nigeria, state governments are doing the opposite, while some of them engage in counterproductive actions.

Back to the needless argument on who is responsible for poverty, it is pointless shuffling blames as to which tier of government is responsible for our poverty burden. All the tiers are in fact responsible. I believe the Federal Government has the greater responsibility for containing poverty because it oversees financial and fiscal policy, which have implications for the economy at large. The Federal Government is yet to be sincere in dealing with poverty…

State governments have been irresponsible in project and programme initiation and execution, as there is often no linkage between these and the human development index. Again, state executives need effective oversight from the state assemblies to keep them responsible. Unfortunately, the most of the legislatures have been captured at the subnational level by the executives, and they are next to useless; hence governors can do as they like in the states. No one holds them accountable for their policies and programmes or measures their effectiveness.

Their increasing reliance on federal allocations for income, rather than engaging in economic activities like agriculture and industrialisation, which would spur rural development, contributes to escalating poverty. The priorities of state executives are often not right and should ordinarily be tailored to address the root causes of poverty. The local governments are moribund and dead in most cases. They are, at best, appendages of the state government and are controlled by the respective state governors. This is the sad reality of our current condition in Nigeria.

China, the acclaimed hero of the world’s most successful poverty-reduction effort, successfully reduced the number of people living below the poverty line in cities to insignificance and decreased the number of rural people below the official poverty line from 775 million in 1980 to 43 million in 2016. China is working hard to eradicate poverty wholly soon. What did China do? The Chinese government focussed on agriculture, capacity building and industrialisation, with specific focus on cultivating certain farm produces using modern science and technology, while developing businesses and industries that would utilise the farm products as raw materials, and building infrastructure to attract people to move to other areas and create new cities.

The Fujian province is an example. The bottom-to-top poverty alleviation model is very effective, especially where there is a genuine effort of the government and businesses, underpinned by a great altruistic poverty reduction philosophy. The town has been the epitome of the philosophy of “common prosperity” for decades. The per capita net income has risen nearly 30-fold in the past 26 years. The Gobi Dessert wine industry is booming, and specific industries, such as mushroom and wolfberry farming, are attracting young people to return to their hometowns to start businesses. The village, with a population of 8,000 residents 20 years ago, was turned into a demonstration town accommodating over 66,000 residents, whose annual disposable incomes soared from 500 yuan ($77.53) before the relocation to 14,961 yuan ($2,320) last year.

Back to the needless argument on who is responsible for poverty, it is pointless shuffling blames as to which tier of government is responsible for our poverty burden. All the tiers are in fact responsible. I believe the Federal Government has the greater responsibility for containing poverty because it oversees financial and fiscal policy, which have implications for the economy at large. The Federal Government is yet to be sincere in dealing with poverty, and it provides cosmetic and lips service solutions to the menace. The same policies that will grow Nigeria are the same policies that will eradicate poverty. Nigeria’s development and poverty eradication are entwined. One cannot happen without the other.

Most Nigerians can adequately articulate the causes of our poverty and even proffer solutions. Poverty is the lived experience of many and not an academic or intellectual exercise or construct. Why must something well-known and so perversive be so elusive to solve? Nigeria needs leaders committed to its economic growth and development with an eagle eye focus on eradicating poverty. Only then will we stop the blame game and tackle the challenge for the benefit of posterity.

The different tiers of government must increase the quantity and quality of the “pie” and then worry about how to share it equitably. Through its policies and projects, the Federal Government of Nigeria must create the enabling environment for economic growth through improved governance at all levels, including the strengthening of institutions to deliver services more effectively and efficiently. And it must provide capacity building, both in terms of human capital and infrastructure; increase access to economic opportunities for all, especially the poor; and improve fiscal decentralisation and socioeconomic restructuring where possible.

I vehemently believe that Nigerians do not care about who is responsible for poverty; all they they want is for it to be addressed. It is the serial failure of different levels of government to provide the building blocks of poverty eradication that has led to the presently deepening immiseration. The present narrative about which tier of government has front-loaded poverty in Nigeria is simply political, unhealthy, and diversionary.

What is not disputed is the prevalence of poverty and its worsening dimensions in the country. The resolution to this debate on whether the states or the Federal Government is responsible for the ballooning of poverty is unlikely. All tiers of government are responsible to different degrees. The challenge is who will come forward with innovative solutions to address the pervading and pervasive poverty?

The literature on poverty eradication is filled with various models adopted by different countries to fight and defeat poverty, from the rise of the Asian Tigers of the late twentieth century (Japan, South Korea, Singapore) to the modern miracles of Dubai, Malaysia, China and India. There are many examples to imitate. This begs the question of why Nigerian leaders have failed to imitate leaders of these countries and eradicate or ameliorate poverty in the country. With our vast human and material resources, one wonders why we have refused to grow our economy and lift many citizens out of poverty. I use the word “refused” to buttress the fact that our state of poverty is by choice, consciously or unconsciously. Most Nigerians can adequately articulate the causes of our poverty and even proffer solutions. Poverty is the lived experience of many and not an academic or intellectual exercise or construct. Why must something well-known and so perversive be so elusive to solve? Nigeria needs leaders committed to its economic growth and development with an eagle eye focus on eradicating poverty. Only then will we stop the blame game and tackle the challenge for the benefit of posterity.

Dakuku Peterside is a policy and leadership expert.