Umar Bindir, a former Secretary to the Adamawa State Government, claims that distribution of palliatives has failed to reduce poverty in Nigeria.
The public affairs analyst mentioned this on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, which aired on Channels Television on Friday.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, an average of 40% of Nigeria’s population is impoverished due to a lack of basic necessities such as housing, food, and clothing.
“To address it, we think it is simply to buy Keke Napep and you think you have created jobs, you have not. Buy salon materials for women and share it to 1,000 of them and you clap for yourself, you have not created any job. Tackling poverty is a technical issue, it’s a commitment issue. First, you have to find these people and have the solution align with the issues,” Bindir said.
He said the poverty alleviation programmes by the Federal Government since the return to democracy in 1999 has failed to tackle the menace of poverty.
“We’ve tried Napep during (Olusegun) Obasanjo, we tried Sure P and YouWin during (Umar) Yar’Adua and (Goodluck) Jonathan, we tried Social Investment programme right from (Muhammadu) Buhari up till now. If you are to do an impact assessment of these programmes, you will find out that still, the average poverty level in this country is very high, meaning there is something that we are not doing properly and there is something that we are not doing right,” he said.
The former Adamawa State official said palliatives distribution are the immediate steps to address hardship. “But how long can a bag of rice take a family?” he queried, saying that to alleviate poverty, the masses must be trained in technical vocations around the agriculture value chain to boost food production.
He said poverty eradication needs committed government officials who are passionate about the masses. “Federal government must have a clear and solid strategy in partnership with states,” he said.