Narrowing the road to poverty
Poverty is a menace that can eat deep into any society, crumbling its economy. Like the saying goes, “A hungry man is an angry man”. A hungry man is easily irritated, quick to anger, thus he can resort to expressing same by carrying out violent activities. If a man is gainfully employed, by the time […]
Poverty is a menace that can eat deep into any society, crumbling its economy. Like the saying goes, “A hungry man is an angry man”. A hungry man is easily irritated, quick to anger, thus he can resort to expressing same by carrying out violent activities. If a man is gainfully employed, by the time he leaves for work in the morning and comes back in the evening he will be very exhausted and would not have the time and strength to engage or get involved in violent activities, it will be difficult for him to be easily manipulated by unpatriotic Nigerians who encourage the commission of crime and crisis in the country.
The National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) is an agency set up by the federal government to monitor and coordinate all poverty eradication programme in the country. It is the opinion of many Nigerians that the agency is not living up to its mandate. The irony behind this misconception is due to the general belief by Nigerians that the agency is setup to give loans or walk the street handing money to Nigerians with a resultant effect of bringing them out of poverty. In my view, the agency NAPEP has done a lot in reducing the pervasive poverty in our land. Aside monitoring all other poverty eradication programmes in the country, the agency has over time come up with a programme which it has sold to state governments for implementation. Notable among its achievements is the keke NAPEP scheme; this scheme has created thousands of jobs for Nigerians, among whom I am a beneficiary. It carried out this programme as a demonstrational project so state, local and private individual can key into it to create jobs for the teaming unemployed youth in the country. In Abuja alone, more than five thousand (5000) tricycles are plying the road thus more than five thousand jobs have been created so far. As someone conversant with keke NAPEP operation, an operator makes an average of three thousand Naira (N3, 000) a day thus making an average of eighty four thousand Naira (N84, 000.00) a month.
I will encourage the agency to develop yet more innovative ways to reduce poverty in our land like the conditional cash transfer programme the agency designed so as to help low income earners to obtain loans from micro finance banks. Realizing the difficulties attached to obtaining loans from the micro finance banks and commercial banks and the fact that there are so many households in Nigeria living below the poverty line, the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme has helped to link the poor to the mainstream of the economy. I will like to encourage our teeming unemployed to take advantage of programmes like this to make their way out of poverty.
The rate of poverty in the country is high and to make an impact there is need to reach out to more lives and many Nigerians who fall off the track on a daily basis. The fight against poverty in Nigeria is enormous; it needs the efforts and contributions of Nigerians here at home and in the Diaspora as it affects each and every one of us directly or indirectly.
John Elaigwu wrote in from Abuja