Payment of N5,000 by FG creates an officially recognised ‘begging class’


By Dele Sobowale



“If we were a soft society then we would already have perished. A soft people will vote for those who promised a soft way out, when in truth there is none. There is nothing Singapore gets for free, even our water we pay for…”


Lee Kuna Yew, in ‘FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST’, p 53.
NOTE: What follows should not in any way be mis-construed as a contradiction with the earlier position that the 2017 Budget offers hope for recovery.
We still stand by that.


But, there is no perfect budget. One can be generally positive while at the same time questioning some provisions in the document.
This is one programme to which Sunday Vanguard strongly objects.


Some events are simply acts of God.
President Buhari, VP Osinbajo, President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Sarakiakubu and Dogara, Speaker House of Reps



On Saturday December 31, 2016, at the residence of the publisher of Vanguard, on a shelf was a copy of Lee Kuan Yew’s global best seller which many people had written and talked about – but few ever read. It was time to read it from page to page in the hope that there might be some insights in it for Nigeria.


I was an undergraduate reading Economics in the United States when in August 1965 the majority Malaysians physically threw out the minority Chinese and other races and forced them to form a new country – Singapore. It was a small island state with no natural resources, no large population, nothing to build upon.


The vast majority of economist in the US gave the new country no more than six months before collapsing. Its per capital income was far less than that of Nigeria. But, by 2000, it had per capita income of over $13,000 per annum – the third highest of any nation in the world.


How did Singapore do it?



By January 3, 2017 when the newspapers announced that “Buhari begins N5000 payment to one million poor Nigerians”, I had raced past page 53 of Yew’s book and it had become clear that one of the reasons tiny Singapore swept mighty Nigeria aside and rose to the top was the fact that right from the start, Yew had impressed it on his people that “We cannot live by the begging bowl.”



By contrast, that aspect of the Social Intervention Programme, SIP, has now legalised a million Nigerians living on the begging bowl. Buhari’s government had legalised paid idleness – all because it must stubbornly redeem a campaign promise which should not have been made in the first place.


What on earth can justify legalised paid idleness in a poor country?



How many other poor countries of the world, tax the workers, collect revenue from productive exports, borrow from foreign and domestic sources, only to turn around and give away a significant percentage of the proceeds of hard work and honest labour by the many to the unemployed few?



Has it even occurred to the framers of this “free money” programme that millions of workers in Nigeria earn less than the N5,000 they will give to the loafers every month? Why not give the money to them as extra?
Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, father of independent India, had warned us that among the things that would destroy us are: “wealth without work.”



Since it became independent in 1948, India has had more people living in poverty than the entire population of Nigeria at any one point in time. Even today, with its economy humming along at close to seven per cent per annum the nation has never given away free money to idle people to stimulate its economy. Indeed, if giving away free money is all that is required to lift an economy out of recession and sustainable economic growth then India and China have more millions of people to do it than Nigeria. Why have they not adopted free money as economic policy?


To start with, the policy represents the triumph of bad politics over good economics – as well as the verdict of our own history.


Most of us now vaguely remember the “Free Education Programme” in the old Western Region which started under late Chief Obafemi Awolowo.


Today, in the same region, now carved into seven states (Ogun. Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta) education that is free is not good; what is good is not free.


That should tell us what to expect when any government encourages any segment of its population to “live by the begging bowl.”
Free money is nothing more than entrenchment of the “begging bowl” mentality. It does not confer dignity on the recipients; it only buys votes for politicians.
It won’t even help to alleviate poverty.



Globally, those living in poverty had been defined as those living on less than two dollars ($2) a day. Giving N5000 per month amounts to giving, at Central Bank rates forty seven cents ($0.47) per day; and at parallel market rates, thirty four cents ($0.34). How on earth does that take them out of poverty? It simply makes no sense. And the N5 billion per month or N60 billion per annum is only 0.008 of the budget for this year and less than 0.001 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Either way, it will not even cause a ripple in the economy. So, it cannot be dictated by economics.



Furthermore, starting this inevitably socially and economically destructive programme demonstrates that government knows that Nigerians are soft people, unlike Singaporeans. That millions of Nigerians actually voted for a government which had promised us a soft way out of the problems we face is an indication of the Nigerian mentality – the something for nothing mentality.



When Yew said “There is nothing Singapore gets for free”, he reminded me of my Economics 100 lecturer at the university, who started every Freshman class with the same anecdote ending with a punch-line: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Nigerians stupidly vote for those promising a lot of free things. Politicians capitalise on the pervasive lack of sense to tell us what we like to hear and not what we must know.



That explains why by the time Buhari was Head of State in 1984, Singapore, without oil, had already passed Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest oil producer, in terms of per capita income and was a more highly respected economic entity than the Giant of Africa. No government of Singapore will ever consider giving free money to idle people because it makes no economic sense in the long term.



Perhaps the most important reason this programme makes no sense is that it has an expiry date. In a nation where abandoned projects run into thousands nationwide, free money will, at best, last as long as the Buhari regime since no other President made the promise to the people. It might even not last the entire tenure of the administration.



Several questions arise from this observation: What then will happen to those who have lived on paid idleness when a new government comes into power and deletes the programme? Will the people then have to develop the self-reliance they have lacked during the years of paid idleness?



At any rate, what stops the same government, after being elected to the second term, from abolishing the project – since the peoples’ votes will no longer be needed? It has happened before. Some of the present state governors, re-elected to second terms, announced education policies which the people had not anticipated. Suddenly, states stopped paying WAEC and JAMB fees; school fees were introduced; tertiary institution fees were increased – among other measures which ignored the “begging bowl” mentality they have fostered when it promoted their political ambitions.


In fact, if anything is certain about the future, it is the abolition of this programme which will bring out the worst in Nigerians.


IS IT FAIR TO ALL?


Now, we turn to other related issues, especially politics and equity.



How is it possible to choose one million out of 80 million poor people in Nigeria without bringing subjective considerations into the matter. Mr Laolu Akande, the spokesman for the Vice President, who made several questionable statements (e.g School feeding programme starting in December when nobody can verify the claim), disclosed that the funds for three states had been released to the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement system – whatever that is. He was careful not to disclose how much was released.



That was probably deliberate. Full disclosure had not been a strong point in the Social Intervention Programme, SIP, which is being managed like the Peoples Democratic Party’s “family affair”.



The first three states, according to Akande are: Borno, Kwara and Bauchi – all controlled by the All Progressives Congress, APC, and all in the North.


Perhaps it was a coincidence. A closer look at the list of states slated to benefit from the first roll out indicates a more deliberately politically skewed programme. The breakdown shows that the zonal allocations are as follows:


So twice as many states in the North will benefit from the programme than Southern states which provide the bulk of oil revenue and tax receipts on which the nation depends for survival.


That is not all, the Vice President and his advisers on this give-away programme had ensured that the top officials in the Executive and legislative branches, as well as “favorite son’s” state, Kaduna, had been included in the first list of states. States from which the President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy Senate President had been dutifully included – while most of the nation’s “Cash Cows” – Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Edo, Lagos, Ondo and Rivers had been excluded.



The Vice President and his advisers must be laboring under the fallacious impression that there is a state in Nigerian where there are no poor people. Lagos with a population of twenty million, mostly unemployed, probably has more destitute people than the entire population of some of the states included. Not a kobo will come here. Instead, Lagosians are supposed to watch while the poor in the VP’s state next door receive attention.


That is not all; a further breakdown of the states presents this picture based on the political party controlling the states.


That by itself should raise the issue of whether they are actually trying to eradicate poverty or paying off their debts to “political stalwarts”. So, this is not only a case of “robbing Peters to pay Pauls”, it is so blatantly unfair one would have to find another word other than fraudulent to describe it.



There are too many facts pointing to the fact that the selections did not coincidentally favour a predetermined group’ it is the sort of happenstance that could trigger a political uproar any time soon. The programme is not even entirely new. One of the first measures of the PDP under President Obasanjo was to launch a Poverty Alleviation Programme, PAP, in 1999, with N10 billion to prosecute the progarmme of assisting poor Nigerians. Till today nobody can account for the money and the number of Nigerians living in poverty actually increased. Why?


“Every great enterprise [especially politically motivated] starts off with enthusiasm for an exalted aim and ends up bogged down in petty politics”, according to Charles Peguy, 1873-1914. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 49).


It was entirely political – just like this one. Nobody undertook a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate that it would be socially beneficial in the end. It is a safe bet that this programme based on the wrong economic foundations will end up in hot disagreements without achieving any of its aims. Anything that makes no economic sense cannot last; and, this will not – unless Nigeria, unlike Singapore, does not pay for everything.


At least, we are beginning to understand why Nigeria might never reach First World status. We don’t have First World economic/political managers in charge of policy. The sooner we developed them and put them in charge of key programmes, like SIP, with its enormous potentials for stimulating economic growth the better for us. Right now, the mentality concerning this particular programme has not risen above that which has left us undeveloped for so long.


“When those in office regard the power vested in them as personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves, promote their families, favour their friends”, wrote Yew. A programme which has the states from which the President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy Senate President and Speaker of the National Assembly, among its first set of beneficiaries cannot be fair to the rest of us. It is tainted with too much self-seeking at the expense of the generality of the people.


P.S. Just before sending this article to the Sunday Editor, Governor Fayose had disclaimed that people in Ekiti received any money. That is only the beginning of what could become a political tsunami regarding this particular programme. The presidency has denied his claims. Buhari and those who advised him on this one are in for a political war which will rob it of any political advantage they expected to get out of it. It will also most probably end up in a probe because it lacks transparency and accountability.



http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/01/payment-n5000-fg-creates-officially-recognised-begging-class/

This government really cares about its people and they are really trying to ease economic burden but their approach is very wrong. Teach them how to fish and not giving them fish.

Well written

Lionbite:
This government really cares about its people and they are really trying to ease economic burden but their approach is very wrong. Teach them how to fish and not giving them fish.

But the downtrodden must eat to survive first before the govt can teach them how to fish. Besides, this was a campaign promise of the govt; thus whether good or bad, the govt has a moral responsibility to fulfill its campaign promises upon which it was elected.

I still don't know any sane country in the world that doesn't have social security intervention as this for her very vulnerable citizens.

USA, UK, Saudi, India, Germany, France and many other countries with pure capitalism still provide social security fr those at the very low rungs of the ladder.

Let's be sincere in our criticism of govt programs and not just criticize just for the sake of it.

Excellent

DropShot:

But the downtrodden must eat to survive first before the govt can teach them how to fish.

I still don't know any country in the world that doesn't have social intervention as this for her very poor citizens

my lemme say this again, the poorest nigerians dont even have bank accounts. Buhari is only paying peopl that are slightly below the middle class.

Lionbite:

my lemme say this again, the poorest nigerians dont even have bank accounts. Buhari is only paying peopl that are slightly below the middle class.

If you have followed this program from beginning, you'd realize that profiling those who are qualified for this program is the main reason it took long time to start it. The profiling include getting them to open special accounts for the purpose of the program.

It's not a crime not to have a knowledge about a particular issue. It is a crime to want to pretend to do when you've failed to find out about it.

DropShot:

If you have followed this program from beginning, you'd realize that profiling those who are qualified for this program is the main reason it took long time to start it. The profiling include getting them to open special accounts for the purpose of the program.

It's not a crime not to have a knowledge about a particular issue. It is a crime to want to pretend to do when you've failed to find out about it.

mr man which stupid profiling are you being deceived with why are you following what media is feeding you, why don you step out of your comfortable home and ask the first beggar you see on the road 'have you been paid the 5,000 naira' i'll bet he has never heard about it before.
The poorest people are the ones lacking information.
The poorest people are the ones sleeping under bridges.
The poorest people are not the ones that heard about it on their radio at their homes and came out to register that they are poor.
.
.
THEIR IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'THE POOR AND THE POOREST'

Den don come again with dem half assed crap!! Vanguard!!

Low class people of no vision will never cease to amaze sane and rational thinkers.... Damned if you don't & double damned if you do!!

If this initiative were to be a western nation's own, folks would be applauding but when it is done by a government they've sworn to be chronically embittered about, this is what we see...

Projects housing ,Medicaid, food stamps, homeless shelters and other welfare programs in the west are what? What purpose were they meant to serve? Who are the main target of such programs?


Ignorant "journalists" dem!! Lazy thinkers who never research but won't stop fanning the embers of hatred and discontent harboured by the foolish ones who gobble the ill thought narratives they keep pushing.

[s]

Lionbite:

mr man which stupid profiling are you being deceived with why are you following what media is feeding you, why don you step out of your comfortable home and ask the first beggar you see on the road 'have you been paid the 5,000 naira' i'll bet he has never heard about it before.
The poorest people are the ones lacking information.
The poorest people are the ones sleeping under bridges.
The poorest people are not the ones that heard about it on their radio at their homes and came out to register that they are poor.
.
.
THEIR IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'THE POOR AND THE POOREST'

[/s]
Stop being a bitter soul.

Tell us how many beggars on the street you asked and how many said yes and no?

The program will surely not catch every vulnerable Nigerian at once. It's in stages and the first stage is for one million of them. As time goes on, it will expand to some others and gradually it will capture those that have to be captured.

I ask you again, is there a responsible country that doesn't have social security program for her vulnerable citizens?

Some of you are just too petty.

DropShot:
[s][/s]
Stop being a bitter soul.

Tell us how many beggars on the street you asked and how many said yes and no?

The program will surely not catch every vulnerable Nigerian at once. It's in stages and the first stage is for one million of them. As time goes on, it will expand to some others and gradually it will capture those that have to be captured.

I ask you again, is there a responsible country that doesn't have social security program for her vulnerable citizens?

Some of you are just too petty.

are you sure you know what social security is? You think when you hear obama speaking on social security he means he is paying poor americans monthly or anually. Study more. See what wikipedia has to say
.
[b]In its 1952 Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (nr. 102), the International Labour Organization(ILO) defined the traditional contingencies covered by social security as including:
*.Survival beyond a prescribed age, to be covered by old age pensions;
*.The loss of support suffered by a widowed person or child as the result of the death of the breadwinner (survivor’s benefit);
*.Responsibility for the maintenance of children (family benefit);
*.The treatment of any morbid condition (including pregnancy), whatever its cause (medical care);
*.A suspension of earnings due to pregnancy and confinement and their consequences (maternity benefit);
*.A suspension of earnings due to an incapacity for work resulting from a morbid condition (sickness leave benefit);
*.A permanent or persistent inability to engage in any gainful activity ( disability benefits);
*.The costs and losses involved in medical care, sickness leave, invalidity and death of the breadwinner due to an occupational accident or disease (employment injuries) [/b]
did you see anywhere where dem right giving money to people without cause? My friend read your books

This is an unusual long post but it's worth reading to the end. Even beggars on the street make more than 5k a month. So this idea is crap.
I wonder the people that got into this kind of stupid trap. Even with primary skull leaving certificate, I should make more than 5k a month. Go and water flowers for a company, do night watchman, be a driver, etc. Buhari is encouraging idleness in this country. What is worth doing, is worth doing well

Social Media Idiots are always uncomfortable with the truth especially when it makes nonsense of their deceitful ways.

welfare programmes are most effective when the government has strong policies that creates job opportunities for those who can work.

not our present situation where rudderless policies have led to over 4.5m job losses in 18 months.... or is the plan to make all Nigerians jobless so we are beholden to the regime for stipends?

such interventions come with very specific conditions attached to them & for very specific people.

people are losing well paying jobs & this regime & its Social Media Idiots think 5000 will solve the issue?

talk about perpetual enslavement...

so when they say jump, we ask how high?

Lionbite:

are you sure you know what social security is? You think when you hear obama speaking on social security he means he is paying poor americans monthly or anually. Study more. See what wikipedia has to say
.
[b]In its 1952 Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (nr. 102), the International Labour Organization(ILO) defined the traditional contingencies covered by social security as including:
*.Survival beyond a prescribed age, to be covered by old age pensions;
*.The loss of support suffered by a widowed person or child as the result of the death of the breadwinner (survivor’s benefit);
*.Responsibility for the maintenance of children (family benefit);
*.The treatment of any morbid condition (including pregnancy), whatever its cause (medical care);
*.A suspension of earnings due to pregnancy and confinement and their consequences (maternity benefit);
*.A suspension of earnings due to an incapacity for work resulting from a morbid condition (sickness leave benefit);
*.A permanent or persistent inability to engage in any gainful activity ( disability benefits);
*.The costs and losses involved in medical care, sickness leave, invalidity and death of the breadwinner due to an occupational accident or disease (employment injuries) [/b]
did you see anywhere where dem right giving money to people without cause? My friend read your books

you should have noticed by now that most people supporting blindly don't read or do research.

Lionbite:

are you sure you know what social security is? You think when you hear obama speaking on social security he means he is paying poor americans monthly or anually. Study more. See what wikipedia has to say
.
[b]In its 1952 Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (nr. 102), the International Labour Organization(ILO) defined the traditional contingencies covered by social security as including:
*.Survival beyond a prescribed age, to be covered by old age pensions;
*.The loss of support suffered by a widowed person or child as the result of the death of the breadwinner (survivor’s benefit);
*.Responsibility for the maintenance of children (family benefit);
*.The treatment of any morbid condition (including pregnancy), whatever its cause (medical care);
*.A suspension of earnings due to pregnancy and confinement and their consequences (maternity benefit);
*.A suspension of earnings due to an incapacity for work resulting from a morbid condition (sickness leave benefit);
*.A permanent or persistent inability to engage in any gainful activity ( disability benefits);
*.The costs and losses involved in medical care, sickness leave, invalidity and death of the breadwinner due to an occupational accident or disease (employment injuries) [/b]
did you see anywhere where dem right giving money to people without cause? My friend read your books

Why are you just trying to confuse yourself by comparing a well established social security system with the point that dropshot guy is trying to make?


This program is a start and can lead to a comprehensive welfare package in the future! Do you even think every one in these developed countries are benefits of such programs? Is this not a step in the right direction that for once a government in nigeria is even trying to assist those that past governments tried to act as though they did not exist?

If you feel like wailing do it constructively abeg!

in fact, what is this regime's idea of 'poorest'?

have they looked at the factors that have contributed to making the so called 'poorest people' poorest?


are the people the poorest because:

1. they can't work/find jobs,

2. lack any skill-set,

3. won't work because their culture supports hangers on & begging?

a man with barely enough to feed himself marries 4 wives he can't cater for, gives birth to 20 kids he can't provide for. impoverished himself & his family by his own deliberate actions & some clowns now want the FG to support such person?

for this programme to work, the government must find the root cause of becoming 'the poorest'.

They shouldn't get the money free, just like that.

Why not ask them to sweep their streets once every three days (except the aged and the sickly) for the N5000? Something so easy to do inform of community service is acceptable even if its twice in a month.

I am afraid, free money is a prelude to perpetual sense of entitlement.

Well I'm sorry to say, Dele Sobowale is suffering from myopia. If the paying of 5k to poor nigerians made him aware that we have an 'official begging' class, then I must say he's as blind as a bat.

There will and always be beggars. I'm sure Dele Sobowale is not aware of the nigerians who use Twitter to beg, neither is he aware of the nigerians who make it their habit to beg celebrities for money, or the ones who beg politicians for cash online and offline.

So, Mr. Sobowale, I'll advice you to open your eyes and see what you're suppose to see. Quoting Lee Kuan Yew and using Singapore as a case study for your basis of comparison is wrong.

Ask yourself, was tribalism, corruption, nepotism, religious extremism couple with bigotry and opinionated beliefs among the problems Singapore faced when she became a free country?

I hope you know a people whose minds is damaged with sentiment will have a time channelling their course to success? Such is the case of Nigeria.

Wailers and their mouthpieces!
Always looking to bend the laws of nature in order to sound ret'arded.

Anyone who has been to Singapore and asked questions will know that they have some of the most effective social security programs in the world, especially in the area of housing.

CCT is a laudable project which even the World Bank supports. They must know a thing or two about extreme poverty, no?

Oh, I forgot, it is a Buhari success story so let's chuck it under the molue bus.

Buhari has enthroned Almajiri economic system.

Now Buhari Is delivering his campain Promises, you are still complaining, una matter tire me o

It's still a good step in the right direction for the government.