State Governors And Rural Poverty -By Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua

The Nigeria Bureau of statistics(NBS) recently released a damning and frightening report on the worsening poverty in the country. The agency has reported that,133 millions Nigerians are living below the poverty line i.e(one dollar per-day). The reports came after the agency carried out survey on multi-dimensional poverty index across the country, which places some states in gloomy poverty picture. In its ranking, sokoto state from North-West became the first state with high rate of poverty followed by Bayelsa in South-South which came second. Disturbed by this unfortunate and horrible report, the state minister of finance, budget and national planning, Clem Agba, blamed state governors for the rising cases of poverty in the country. The minister stated that, state governors have preferred to concentrate on building of projects within the states’ capital, instead of channeling the resources to the rural areas. Most of the state governors prioritised building of flyovers and airports than building of bridges and roads in the rural areas. He further said, “With lack of storage facilities and poor bad road network, farmers lost their food products “. The minister may be right. Looking at the huge amount of resources the federal government earmarked and disbursed through its social investment programs such as N-power, trade-moni and school feeding programs, the CBN intervention policies such as anchor borrowers and its success story, the federal government has indeed paid it’s own dues.

If the state governors have complemented the federal government efforts on war against poverty through good policies and programmes, the report of alarming rate of poverty will not have cropped up let alone become the topic of discussion in the country. Before the NBS’s scaring reports, the Global poverty clock, an independent poverty monitoring group in 2021,put 87 millions Nigerians to have lived below the poverty line. It went ahead to describe Nigeria as the poverty headquarters of the world, overtaking India. However, the reports did not go down well with our policies makers. It attracted condemnations and denials. Our political leaders quickly debunked or reputed the story and described it as outright false. Now, NBS has reaffirmed the reports of global poverty clock and even surpassed it’s record. Can we still live in denial? Another shocking revelation came from the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Zainab Ahmed Shamsuna, who stated that, since 2015,state governors have collected whopping sum of 5.4 trillions naira as statutory allocation and other payments from the federation account. If these facts are not enough, then the released of over 625billion to 9 oil producing states as arrears of derivation and sure-p funds is enough evidence to show states governments are not cash starved.

Local governments which are closer to the people and are supposed to perform local functions such as: construction of feeder roads, building of schools and hospitals only exit by name. State governments, through joint-account, have rendered them financially handicapped. President Muhammad Buhari, during the just concluded NIPSS graduation ceremony in kuru, Jos, blamed state governors for tempering with the local governments funds. He cited an example that, if 100 millions is allocated to a particular local government, the governor will give the chairman 50millions and order him to sign that he collected 100 millions. The remaining 50 millions belong to the governor who will spend it the way he likes it. President Muhammad Buhari has stated the obvious facts. Local governments in Nigeria have been relegated to background by the state governments. When they pay staff salaries at the end of the month, the remaining funds are not enough to carry out capital projects.

There is no gainsaying the facts, corruption and lack of priority among the state governments fuel poverty in the rural areas. Since the return of democracy in 1999,trillions of naira meant for states development which were received by states governors banished to the thin air or became unaccounted. Federalism which the country practices has encouraged states governments to tailor their policies in tandem with the national’s policies direction. Nonetheless, this is not so, as many state governments are working at cross-purposes with federal government on war against poverty in the country. Provision of good education, electricity and roads network to rural communities is a silver bullet to addressing poverty. Besides discouraging rural to urban drift, it will stimulate economy growth. Local government system should be reformed to become financially independent. The joint-account which serve as a conduit pipe should be abolished. The alarming rate of rural poverty will be fully and squarely tackled if state and local governments become responsive to the yearning and expectations of the rural populace.

Ibrahim Mustapha Pambegua, Kaduna state 08169056963.