opinion

It is easy to misunderstand my position on the grim report of the National Bureau of Statistics on the deteriorating standards of living in Nigeria. I must therefore state it clearly that there is indeed unjustified abject poverty in Nigeria.

Even at this, it is for want of a better way to put it. Majority of Nigerians are unable to live the life that citizens of smaller neighbouring countries have and value, and instead remain vulnerable to poor health, nutrition, poor standards of education, political emasculation and exploitation, insecurity and natural calamities. Added to this yoke is the unbearable burden that they may not have voted for people who rule them in such every wrong way, and even as they did not, their will is defied and they are saddled with their status in defiance even of God. This predicament is shameful and hurting, particularly when viewed against our potential and capacity as a richly endowed nation.

The figures from the nation's Chief Statistician are simple to understand. The population of the nation's poor increased from 69% of our population in 2010, to 71.5%. According to the report, 112.52 million Nigerians live below the poverty line of $1 a day. "Extremely poor, moderately poor and non poor were 38.7%, 30.3% and 31% respectively."

This well known grim report is as expected, and as a matter of fact, is more likely to be worse.

Nigeria, far from the branding of 'good people, great nation', remains a classical paradox - poor people, rich nation.

Says the report, as at 2010 statistical figures poverty measurement when analysed on geo-political zones basis showed that the North West and North East zones accounted for the highest poverty rates with 77.7 per cent and 76.3 per cent respectively. The South West, with 59.1 per cent, recorded the lowest poverty rate in the country.

A further analysis of the poverty level on state-by-state basis showed that Sokoto had the highest number of poor in the country with 86.4 per cent of its population recorded as not enjoying good living standards compared to Niger State which had the lowest poverty rate of 43.6 per cent by end 2010.

In a functioning State and a genuine democracy, political leadership is elected only if it exhibits a well articulated plan and a road map to a clearly defined desired change. Not so in our dear country Nigeria. Politicians cleverly get us mired in destructive distractions that veil the wanton pillage of national wealth, making issues of our dichotomies - of where oil is and where it is not, which religion matters and which one is not, or what ethnic group is superior, and which one is unworthy.

Should we be surprised that the national poverty indicator statistics are shameful? Is this not reflective of our formula for the distribution of federal revenue that allocates disproportionately to each of the States of the Federation, against the favour of the North, the now impoverished geopolitical region? In September 2011, Akwa Ibom and Rivers received 17bn naira each compared to Sokoto's 4bn naira, the average for most of the States of the North, and this has been the allocation pattern legally for years. Is it not obvious that the National Poverty Index will so remain given this defective system of sharing for entities called equal States? This is a point so poignantly made by Sam Nda Isaiah in his excellent and frank Monday epistle aptly captioned, 'Hell what is SNC'?

The North is the nation's laughing stock seeing that the endemic nature of our poverty is more pronounced there, very much to the pleasure and joy of conductors of the mass choir of the promoters of the so called Sovereign National Conference, namely our 'neo-Nationalists' like Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Presidential Promoter Oronto Douglas, the self acclaimed "father" of our Ijaw President, Edwin Clark and many others who love to talk of a grander Northern subjugation of the South than this, that in the 2011 elections, the North kept the faith and gave the Nation their own son of their soil, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. These that I refer to should all owe Nigeria more nationalistic zeal than they are exhibiting, but how can they, given their well known interests.

Oronto Douglas and some of his friends particularly Atedo Peterside should visit Jigawa State that they call the poorest in Nigeria even for one day, and see how its poverty has become its wisdom and asset. It has decided to return to the 1960 basics, to develop the human element by concentrating on the choices and opportunities that were open at independence, a well productive natural resource based agricultural sector, and a people motivated and protected by legislated policies of state-sponsored development of human and infrastructure capital. They will discover that no destitute swarm round them to beg for alms because the less than one dollar a day is being made to count! Oxen pull ploughs to till the soil, and not giant tractors. The same oxen transport produce to the markets and gather food for the homes, and not pick-up trucks. But on this less than a dollar a day, the poor in the region live an enviable life of peace, security, contentment and sufficiency. (Never mind Boko Haram - it is a symptom of the income inequality). Over the years, Bauchi, Gombe, and Plateau and Adamawa offer notable examples of succeeding state-sponsored development that makes you want to probe what the South-South and South-West Governors have done with their gross revenue allocations given their glaring deficiencies.

Of course the North suffers from its share of national problems of ineffective leadership, and corruption, and the full dimensions of the poverty indicators are hardly appreciated by people in power, saddled with responsibility to deal with the situation, but blame first, the revenue allocation formula in use, skewed to only ensure that the North wallows in total economic subjugation, poverty and stagnation.

Former American President Bill Clinton had this thesis that linked the Boko Haram crisis and insecurity in the North to the "significant inequality between Northern Nigeria and other parts of the country. "The poverty rate in Northern Nigeria is 72%, Niger Delta 35% and the rest of Nigeria 27%." When watching Nigerian leaders of Northern extraction listen to Bill Clinton tell them this, I wondered what they were thinking. In Nigeria, institutional systems like public power supply, water, and health care, are a failure, but the elite are quick to develop alternative individual solutions like a private borehole, electricity generator in every house on the street of their side of town and in a short time, forget about the failed systems, and abandon the poor to languish in all the deprivations.

Today we speak about oil in total oblivion of the historical fact that at independence in 1960 the nation had a well diversified agricultural sector that conveniently catered for 75% of the population and if you check World Bank records, agriculture accounted for 68% of our GDP, 78% of exports and believe it, provided the population 94% of its food needs. To me, this is the greater challenge. Clearly Nigeria is being impoverished today because we neglected and compromised agriculture, which is revivable, and spending today what should be saved for our tomorrow.

South Sudan today, has found itself where we were in 1960 - a new nation facing the challenge of development but has decided according to the country's Vice President Riek Machar, development would be put on hold for several years in the absence of a mutual agreement on transit fees that South Sudan should pay for using Khartoum's oil export infrastructure. "For a period of 30 months, we will definitely freeze our activities on development" but will provide basic services namely government salaries, maintenance of its large military, health, education, water, and vital infrastructure. What South Sudan has today that we lost, is a visionary leadership that is boldly making hard choices to prioritise what makes sense in development.

Our Northern Governors need to openly address poverty and adopt a common action plan. Their demand for a review of our revenue allocation formula is justified, even as the idea of resource control is becoming more attractive with each passing day.