WRITTEN BY PRINCESS CHUKWU

 new report by The World Poverty Clock shows that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world. Before now, India used to hold the position with a population of over one point three billion people as against Nigeria’s population of over one hundred and ninety-three million people.

As at the end of May 2018, study showed that Nigeria had about eighty-seven million people living in extreme poverty, compared with India’s seventy-three million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.

The 87 million Nigerians, now living in extreme poverty, represent nearly 50% of its population. And as Nigeria faces a major population boom, it is being projected that it will become the world’s third largest country by 2050. The struggle to lift more citizens out of extreme poverty is an indictment on successive Nigerian governments, which have mismanaged the country’s vast oil riches through incompetence and corruption.

The way forward is for Nigerians to step up their games to assist the government. The one way they can effectively do that is through voluntary Family Planning (FP). Research has shown that poverty increases with household size. Having more children by poor families reduces their chances of escaping poverty because bigger households make a dent on their incomes.

No doubt, if Nigerians were able to give birth to the number of children their incomes can cater for; they would be able to provide quality education for them. The population of a country could be cited as their strength, but in such case, the people must be able to contribute meaningfully to the economy by producing goods and services, thereby reducing importation and also going into mechanized farming to have enough for export.

Therefore, there must also be increased social amenities to correspond with the increasing population. It is regrettable that in Nigeria, population growth out passes public infrastructure and development by far.

Also, there is need for government to invest more in education. This can help break the cycle of chronic poverty, which is especially prevalent in Nigeria’s northern region. There is equally the need for poverty reduction programmes to be introduced and religiously implemented within the framework of rapid economic growth with equity, controlled population growth, sound economic management, and good governance, among others.

Above all, there should be increase in the income of poor people.  However, economic growth alone is not sufficient for poverty reduction.  Therefore, growth must be accompanied by redistribution and equity policy, promoted by participation.  In this direction, policies that involve the poor and which will generate employment need to be introduced and complemented by those aimed specifically at reducing poverty.

Indeed, Nigeria has not made any visible progress in recent years but all hope is not lost, because together, with our individual and collective efforts, Nigeria can go back to being the Giant of Africa again.

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