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Assessment of National Poverty Eradication Programme
Chapter One
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Poverty manifests in several ways ranging from malnutrition, diseases,
low rate of life expectancy, child labour, dehumanized working conditions,
illiteracy, inadequate and inhabitable shelter, low intelligence quotient and
high crime rate. Hence, an economy plagued with the above negative indices as
obtained in Nigeria can hardly make any appreciable growth not to talk of
development over time. Poverty is indeed Nigeria’s major challenge, which,
according to the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS)
document ‘remains daunting’. The National Poverty Eradication Programme,
(NAPEP) confirmed that poverty is making more people to experience pronounced
deprivation. And that, if not quickly addressed, it can “create a divide that
can undermine our confidence”. Nigeria is blessed with enormous human and
natural resources, yet well over twothird of her 130 million inhabitants are
wallowing in abject poverty. And if the present trends continue, the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG’s) target of 2015 will be a mirage. We really need to
ponder why the poverty level has been on the increase over the years despite
the enormous resources and revenue earned by the country all this while. Recall
that in 1980, an estimated 27 percent of the citizenry lived in poverty.
And about two decades later, at least 70 percent of the ever-increasing
population wallows in abject poverty in various dimensions. By 1999, more than
two third of Nigerians had income of less than US$1.00 per day and the indices
are rising by the day. Life expectancy mortality rose to 77 out of every 1,000
and 700 per 100,000 respectively due to inadequate or non functional basic
health and social infrastructures. The country’s growth has been stunted with
ever growing arm of poor and unemployed people, largely due to dismally low
capacity utilization in the industrial sectors of the economy. However, past
governments in Nigeria cannot be oblivious of the depth of the poverty in our
midst as some programmes were initiated to better the lots of the citizenry.
Such palliative programmes or initiatives include the moribund Operation Feed
the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution, River Basin Development Authority (RBDA),
Director of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI); NALDA, 1991
Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme and Peoples Bank Nigeria (PBN) Agricultural
Insurance Company; Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), Nigeria
Agricultural and Corporative Bank (NACB) now Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative
and Rural Development Bank being an off shoot of PBN, FEAP and NACB all
designed to reposition agriculture to its prime place by opening up the rural
areas through the provision of infrastructures and credit or loanable funds.
Unfortunately, none of these “lofty” programmes could survive the intricacies
of corruption and bureaucracy, red-tapism inherent in both the public and
private lives and as such couldn’t make any meaningful impact on the lives of
the rural dwellers. 3 Well, it is often posited that we have had well-co
nceived ideas and plans in the past but the boat is always rocked at the
point of implementation. All the National Development plans were never spared
from these vagaries. Conscious and pragmatic initiatives should be adopted now
to address the problems of poverty and related dehumanizing conditions
pervading our land. The super powers and great economies of this world are
loosing sleep knowing well that they can no longer prosper amidst deprivation
and hunger ravaged citizens of this world. The “super rich” among the developed
countries have initiated several programmes either in the name of donor
agencies, bilateral and multilateral cooperation or in recent years, debt
forgiveness which is now being flaunted as political or diplomatic tool. This
act of “benevolence” is to assist poor countries that lack the ability or
capacity to pay such debts get off the shackles of debt burden and by
implication to enable such poor countries to concentrate on tackling poverty.
It is quite obvious that the immediate and sustainable panacea to poverty can be
found in agriculture. It is widely believed that more than 60 percent of the
population of Nigeria live on agriculture in the rural areas. No doubt, that it
is in recognition of the pivotal role of agriculture in the quest for good life
and wealth creation that Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) stipulated
that countries, especially the developing ones should allocate 25 percent of
their annual budget to agriculture. Unfortunately, what the Nigeria government
has been allocating to agriculture is dismal.
Available statistics indicate that the percentage of allocation for
agriculture in terms of capital expenditure has been a far cry from the FAO
recommended 25 percent. The highest allocation so far was 12 percent recorded
in 2004 while the lowest allocation recorded between year 2000 and now were 3.6
percent and 3.5 percent for 2000 and 2003 respectively. Other supportive
sectors like education, health and even water resources were equally not spared
of problem of under funding. And the earlier we review our priorities the
better for the nation. For the fact that over 60 percent of Nigeria’s
population reside in the rural areas practicing agriculture predominantly. If
this large segment is reasonably catered for by way of creating enabling
environment for farming and related activities to thrive the poverty question
and its attendant malaise would have been tackled frontally. Going by the
National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) efforts are now being redirected
towards partnerships and collaborations with other agencies and groups to
source and allocate resources for productive engagements in the economy. To
this end, it is being strongly suggested that considerable resources should be
channeled to rural based activities because a robust rural economy is capable
of kick starting and driving the economy to prosperity. It is regrettable that
agriculture is presently plagued by several problems which includes but not
limited to inadequate input supply, inadequate working capital, crude or
rudimentary tools due to low rate of adoption of technology and poor
postharvest technology.
NB: The Complete Thesis is well written and ready to use.
