Nigeria: That no one is left behind

Just visualise Nigeria as a bus. It is at a terminal, with intending passengers boarding and paying their fares as they get on the bus. Only those who are able to pay are allowed access to this bus. The departure time is nearing, and a few potential passengers are hanging around the terminal, but here […]

Just visualise Nigeria as a bus. It is at a terminal, with intending passengers boarding and paying their fares as they get on the bus. Only those who are able to pay are allowed access to this bus. The departure time is nearing, and a few potential passengers are hanging around the terminal, but here at the terminal, just as in the marketplace, only someone’s ability to pay guarantees access. 

Soon, the bus is getting on the way, and some people are unable to board because they cannot pay, or force-push themselves into the vehicle. They are left behind. 

Now, imagine this is a crisis situation in a city, village, or some other place, and people need to be evacuated fast but need to pay for their evacuation.  As the situation deteriorates and the bus is under pressure to depart, those unable to get on are on their own. This is the state in which Nigeria has found itself, with many of its citizens wallowing in abject poverty. 

In the global march to the 2030 deadline for eradicating extreme poverty, Nigeria’s steps are yet to be firmly on the ground. From all indications, this country is not yet sure where we are and how to get to the desired destination. 

How vessel stealing Nigerian crude for 10 years was nabbed

NIGERIA DAILY: Why Road Signs Are Crucial

Instead, what we have experienced in the past few years is actually retrogression. Even some passengers who had managed to get onto the welfare bus have actually been forced to disembark, or outrightly thrown out of the vehicle. They have joined the rank of those left behind by the train of national development. 

The figures are worrisome. In the latest of such reversals, the World Bank estimated that the removal of the fuel subsidy and the attendant inflationary spiral pushed four million Nigerians into poverty in the first half of this year. That took the number of Nigeria’s poor to 93.8 million, from 89.8 million at the start of the year.  It warned that if appropriate measures are not implemented to mitigate the impact of the subsidy removal, an additional 7.1 million Nigerians will further drop off the moving train into the value of poverty, raising the country’s number of poor to approximately 101 million. 

These figures follow similar statistics of shame that the global lender issued in the recent past on Nigeria. The bank previously told us in 2021 that in the previous year, at least seven million Nigerians were pushed into poverty by ravaging inflation. This is just one of such depressing statistics we now have to deal with. For now, we are yet to get the number of casualties from the exchange rate unification and the additional inflationary impact from it. Indeed, as analysts are fond of saying, the cumulative impact of this “double whammy” is yet to be established, but it certainly will not be cheering news. 

People who fall into poverty have certainly been left behind in the scheme of things. They can no longer do the things they used to do for themselves and their families. It means literarily falling off the welfare bus painted at the beginning of this piece, while the bus continues. They can no longer go to the same markets with their mates and colleagues or friends. They can no longer buy the things they used to buy for their children because they cannot afford them. And the children will notice the change. In some cases, they may have to relocate from where they were living because they can no longer afford the rent. If they were driving cars before, they become bicycle riders, not for the fun of it, or they could even begin to walk or take public transport. 

Stories on poverty have taken an entirely new status. Poverty has become a barometer for assessing policy effectiveness or otherwise. Poverty exists because of policy failure over time. As several economists have pointed out, Nigeria has in many ways become a good example of policy delay or inconsistency, which is a precondition for policy failure. Even with the recent unification of the naira exchange rates and fuel subsidy removal, we know these came several years late. And because of that delay, the cost of the measures has become higher, as most Nigerians are experiencing now. 

Why did we wait for so long before unifying the naira exchange rates, a measure that could have been done in less disruptive ways? Why was it difficult for the government of the day to remove the petrol subsidy, even after all evidence had shown that the so-called subsidy was at best a farce, not benefiting the actual people it should be meant for? 

A country that is committed to leaving no one behind should show this in its policy choices; it shows this in the list of actions taken to bridge the widening inequality between the rich and the poor. It shows this in the way resources are allocated and actually utilised by the state to address the problem of poverty and inequality. 

The failure to do so becomes more intolerable given that it is supported by the institutions of the state. It is an irony that in Nigeria, inequality has in practical terms been legalised through the lopsided reward system that gives to just a few persons the quantum of resources enough to lift millions out of poverty in the same country, thereby ensuring they are not left behind. 

In 2022, Nigeria was reported to have a Gini coefficient of 35.1 as of 2019. This, according to reports, put the country in the 11th position in West Africa on income distribution. But globally that placed the country is the 100th position out of 163 countries. The Gini ratio measures a country’s income distribution, with lower values representing a high degree of inequality, while figures approximating 100 represent more egalitarianism. 

The 2022 report indicated that, more specifically, Nigeria has an income inequality of 1 to 14 for the top 10 per cent to the bottom 50 per cent of the population and 1 to 37 for the top one per cent. The trouble with such values is that, like all average measures, they mask deep variations out there. As an example, let someone attempt to establish how many low-income Nigerians a typical member of our legislatures, federal and state, can account for in terms of earnings. The figure will be staggering. 

Given the known income or wealth differences in Nigeria, there must be concrete measures to narrow this gap, by instituting measures that can ensure that no one is left behind come 2030.