In separate verdicts, the African Development Bank (AFDB) and the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) have slammed the Nigerian government for skyrocketing poverty and corruption levels in the country.
While the AFDB expressed pessimism concerning the government’s battle to end poverty by 2015, the CNPP said corruption is a major challenge against the country’s growth and progress.
According to AFDB, more Nigerians became poorer between 1996 and 2010. While the military was in power between 1996 and 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been in power at the centre since 1999.
In its annual report with the title: African Economic Outlook, AfDB said the proportion of those living below the national poverty line has worsened from 65.5 per cent in 1996 to 69.0 per cent in 2010. The report claimed that Nigeria’s prospect of halving poverty by 2015 seems weak, while poverty is higher in rural areas at 73.2 per cent than in urban area at 61.8 per cent. It added that the poverty rate varied significantly between the urban and rural citizens and among the geographical zones.
The report stated that 66 per cent of the rural population lives below poverty line while malnutrition is widespread. It noted that rural areas and disadvantaged groups are particularly vulnerable to chronic food shortage and unbalanced nutrition and that 41 per cent of Nigerian children are stunted, nine per cent wasted or thin and 23 per cent underweight.
According to the report, in 2011 unemployment rate was at 24 per cent as against the 21 per cent in 2010 while an average of 1.8 million people entered the labour market every year over the past five years.
Quoting statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, AFDB said the number of entrants into the labour market annually would grow from three million in 2012 to about 8.5 million in 2015.
CNPP National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu also noted in an interview with journalists that to have any meaningful development, corruption has to be tackled first, as it is the main problem be devilling the country.
“When a road contract is awarded, and year in year out you continue to budget for the same contract which is not executed, the outcome of course results to corrupt practice. When a transparent leadership is enthroned in the country, then Nigeria will advance in all facets,” he said.
“The corrupt officials in Nigeria do not remember religion, if you go through the ring leaders of the pension scam; they have all the federal character so there is no crisis there. The impact of that pension scam is that it led to the death of some of the pensioners because they could not get their pension.
“The result also is that it had made those in service to start stealing from government coffers because the scam is a pointer that they might not get anything when they retire.”
