In March 2018, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that Nigerians are getting poorer and therefore called for urgent and coherent economic policies to take more Nigerians out of poverty. But it seems federal government refused to listen to the organisation’s advice as the gory situation painted by the IMF still exists, in fact, it is getting worse.
The standard of living has fallen significantly, the earnings have dropped massively while the necessary palliatives are missing to salvage the situation. The Economic Recovery Growth Plan of the Federal Government is only active in theory but not evident enough in the lives of Nigerians. This among other inadequacies has caught the attention of ActionAid, a civil rights group.
According to the group, the Nigerian Economy is out of recession but most Nigerians have slipped into extreme poverty. The chairman of the governing board of the group Patricia Donli said “In 2016, the prevalence of people living below the poverty line ranged between 54 per cent to 60 percent but today, 82 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line of 1.9 dollars a day.” This simply means we are not getting better going by the available indices.
The federal government has gone to sleep after the nation exited recession but the numbers are increasing. At the moment, Nigeria is rated 187 out of 190 countries on the poverty index. Government has failed to tackle the issue of unemployment which is the main factor brewing poverty in the country. The million of individuals applying for less than five thousand slots of available federal jobs is a pointer to the fact that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder.
It is noteworthy that tackling unemployment in the country is not the sole responsibility of the Federal government alone but state Governments must also rise to their responsibility by getting involved. In addition, Government should formulate principles and policies that will make the country attractive for investors to thrive as this will help in mitigating the effect of unemployment.
No country develops without taking its citizens out of poverty.
Leave a reply