Abuja Bureau Chief, LEON USIGBE, writes that all eyes will be on the new Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, as the Tinubu administration seeks ways to deal with the pervasive poverty in the country.
LET the poor breathe. Don’t suffocate them.” This statement that appears to be an offhand vocalization of President Tinubu’s identification with the plight of the majority of the masses in the country has since acquired a life of its own with many people, including the president of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, using it to remind him of the task his government faces in alleviating poverty, which observers say is by far the most important scourge he must confront.
Nigeria had already gained for itself the unenviable toga of the poverty capital of the world before this administration’s discontinuation of the payment of subsidy on petroleum and collapse of the official and parallel foreign exchange rates, whose cascading effects, among others, took the purchasing power of the people to a new low. But President Tinubu argues that his intention is to remodel the nation’s economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security and an end of extreme poverty.
He admitted in his last nationwide broadcast: “Our economy is going through a tough patch, and you are being hurt by it. The cost of fuel has gone up. Food and other prices have followed it. Households and businesses struggle. Things seem anxious and uncertain. I understand the hardship you face. I wish there were other ways. But there is not. If there were, I would have taken that route as I came here to help not hurt the people and nation that I love.”
The president has recently approved that a loan of N5 billion be given to each of the states of the federation for the purchase of 100,000 bags of rice, 40,000 bags of maize and fertilizers to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal in fulfilment of his promise of the immediate reduction of “the burden our current economic situation has imposed on all of us, most especially on businesses, the working class and the most vulnerable among us.”
The loan is not without its critics who say that it will end up feeding the appetite of corrupt government officials, politicians and their lackeys, leaving the target beneficiaries in continued quandary.
However, in the longer term, Tinubu is hoping that his structure in the newly reconfigured ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation under the guardianship of Dr. Betta Edu as the minister, will manage to help the poor to breathe.
The ministry is yet to make public the strategy for executing its mandate, but judging by the president’s electoral campaign promise as encapsulated in his “Renewed Hope” document, Edu will probably draw on the controversial N500 billion a year National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) of the preceding administration to lift families out of poverty.
Central to the NSIP are the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) intended to directly supports those within the lowest poverty rung, and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSF), which aimed to deliver school feeding to young children, specifically focusing on increasing school enrollment, and reducing the incidence of malnutrition. But under the last administration, they lacked transparency in implementation and were thought to have become a conduit pipe for corrupt officials to siphon public funds.
Some critics also observed that components such as TraderMoni, FarmerMoni and MarketMoni essentially became mere gimmicks meant to secure more votes during elections.
The National Economic Council (NEC) has discarded the social register used by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for the execution of the NSIP due to observed flaws despite being produced in conjunction with the World Bank and the onus now rests on Edu and her team to midwife a more acceptable version.
Given the importance of an agreeable register, all eyes will be on Edu to deliver in a way that best serves the interest of the most vulnerable in the country. “We will be re-jigging a lot of things as we go on, especially the agencies under the ministry. We have to lift the 136 poor million Nigerians out of poverty. We will do it. We have to do it. We will play down on politics and baggage and face the real business of why we are here. I will ensure that this becomes the best ministry in Nigeria,” the new minister declared on assumption of office.
Edu believes that she is well primed for the job judging by her personal background. “All my life, I have had to reach out to people. I am a child of a missionary. I read medicine. Growing up, I watched my father going to reach out to people. He shared items with them while I watched. Some of the people had scabies. So, I decided to read medicine to help out. However, this appointment is on a larger scale. I am open to suggestions. Things will not continue the way they are. We will ensure people no longer live below one dollar per day.”
With over 130 million Nigerians living in poverty, the former Woman Leader of the ruling party is promising to bring back smiles on the faces of the vulnerable through the renamed and refocused ministry that is intent on shedding its opaque past. How she goes about this will be keenly watched by all and sundry.
. TheWitness
