The Federal Government have claimed that state governors are partially to blame for the nation’s rising rate of poverty.
This was stated by the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Agba, who pointed out that 72% of the poor in the country live in rural areas, claimed that the governors had forsaken this crucial group in favor of investing state funds in the nation’s capital cities.
He said “The governors are basically functioning in their state capitals. And democracy that we preach about is delivering the greatest goods to the greatest number of people. And from our demographic, it shows that the greatest number of our people live in rural areas, but the governors are not working in the rural areas.
“Right now 70% of our people live in rural areas. They produce 90% of what we eat. And unfortunately 60% of what they produce is lost due to post harvest loss and it does not get to the market.
“I think from the federal government’s side we are doing our best. But we need to say that rather than governors continuing to compete to take loans to build airports that are not necessary, where they have other airports so close to them, or governors now competing to build flyovers all over the place.
“We appeal that they should concentrate on building rural roads so that the farmer can at least get their products to the market.”
Citing the findings of a recent survey he conducted across the 109 Senatorial districts nationwide, the Minister said Sokoto state ranked the highest on the poverty scale, followed by the oil rich state of Bayelsa.
“The result clearly shows that 72 per cent of poverty is in the rural areas. It also showed clearly that Sokoto state is leading in poverty with 91 per cent.
“But the surprising thing is Bayelsa being the second in terms of poverty rating in the country. So you see the issue is not about availability of money. But it has to do with the application of money,” he said.
He also bemoaned the fact that, despite the federal government’s efforts to combat poverty, the outcomes do not correspond to the sum of money invested in the region.
According to him, “In the course of working on the national development plan, we looked at previous plans and asked why they didn’t do as much as expected. We also looked at the issues of the National Social Investment Programme.
“At the federal level, the government is putting out so much money but not seeing so much reflection in terms of money that has been put into alleviating poverty, which is one of the reasons the government also put in place the national poverty reduction with growth strategy.
“But if the federal government puts the entire income that it earns into all of this without some form of complementarity from the state governments in playing their part, it will seem as if we are throwing money in the pond.” he said.
He urged state governors to channel their resources into providing “food, nutrition, housing and clothing for our people before we begin to think of how to go to the moon and begin to build flyovers and airports in the state capital.”
