By Adisa Adeleye

THE statement that Nigeria is a poor country has become an axiom and that majority of Nigerians wallow in abject poverty is no longer news. The fact is that the Nigerian authorities at all levels have resigned themselves to the salient fact and are thus immersed in seeking remedy, howbeit, ineffective to confront the menace. It must be agreed that the Nigerian colourful bird is from the patient specie – waiting without struggle until it is roasted.

So are the characteristics of the Nigerian people – they wait until they are pushed to the wall. Having been pushed to the wall, many Nigerians would try and scale the wall as a remedy.
It is obvious that the country`s poverty is a direct consequence of the nation`s inability to seek remedy against the dreaded scourge of poverty. It is either that the remedy against poverty and want is inadequate or the right remedy applied in insufficient doses. Often, wrong medicine (policy) is used for a disease which has been wrongly diagnosed.

Mass unemployment

In Nigeria, mass unemployment is widely responsible for urban poverty while under-development of the country`s vast rural areas has bred mass drift to the urban centres and the abandonment of subsistent farming. It is noticed that urban congestion without adequate houses, water and other factors for good living has bred poverty, disease and sadly, insecurity. The dangerous situation is not new to Nigerian people and the authorities.

The real problem of the country, according to some analysts, is the inability of Nigerian leaders at all times to see the direct link between poverty and insurgency or as some would insist, the direct link between unemployment and urban poverty. There is also the vacuum created by rural depopulation on food production. The consequence is that the oil rich country with enviable arable land could not feed itself and had to resort to importation of food items which could be produced cheaply locally.

The elegant slogans of the past, Green Revolution, BACK TO THE LAND, etc have signified nothing in the face of hunger and the desire to eke a decent living. Agricultural revolution through modern mechanized farming means nothing to the peasant farmers whose wants are limited: prompt weeding of his land, availability of improved seedlings to plant, insecticides to control pests and easy harvesting. The rural farmer is happy to take his product to the village market, sell and collect his money with ease.

The authorities have the obligation of improving the rural areas through improved roads to established village markets where farmers could exchange their products for money. Such marketers would have storage facilities and purchase arrangements to avoid wastages. There should also be easy access to subsidized insecticides for the rural farmers, training in the use of simple farm implements other than hoes and cutlasses. The necessary farm extension services would provide employment to many Agricultural Science graduates, apart from the prospects of increasing rural crop production.

There is no doubt that if rural life is improved by the provision of modern living conditions like good roads, health centres, schools, post-offices, potable water and consumer shops where farmers could buy their daily needs, the usual drift to urban centres would be greatly minimized. The effective remedy is: Take modern living to the villages. Perhaps, the situation described above has become familiar scenery in the Nigerian social panorama that little attention is paid to finding effective remedy.

As noted, urban congestion without adequate social services has bred squalor, disease and rise in crimes. Mass unemployment has complicated the problems of congested urban centres, leading to various criminal activities by the idle hands whose motive is to get something out of a callous society (whose cruel disposition offends their sense of justice). As it is often argued, poverty in the country is qualified. There is a tiny percentage of Nigerians with extremely high standard of living. There are also, many luxurious estates inhabited by lucky Nigerians who have jobs as company executives, highly paid civil servants and of course, the political class. Against these exotic creatures are ranged the criminal gangs of armed robbers, kidnappers, ritual killers and political assassins.

The serious problem so far, has been the attitude of the political leadership towards proper understanding of the relationship between the improper distribution of the national income and the determination of certain affected groups to have their “pound of flesh”. The kidnappers have tested, perhaps with impunity, the sinews of the untouchables in the country.

The political official reaction to insurgency is to commit the full force of security agents – army; air-force and police while the police force is believed adequate to handle the lesser menace of armed robbery and kidnapping.

Meanwhile, the political jamborees with their monetary wastages and threats to human lives and properties proceed in their grandeur. Some foreigners and many patriotic Nigerians are doubtful if the country is not sick and its people not afflicted with psychic disorder to the extent that they are thinking of elections only when their country is “at war” with itself.

The country is believed to have elders in many past elected Presidents (Shagari and Obasanjo) and military `presidents` (Buhari, Babangida and Abubakar) who must have been watching daily the gradual dissent into anarchy through the activities of insurgents and the criminal gangs, and the high levity of political responses to the challenge.

Perhaps it may not be too much if the political gladiators are politely advised to come together to face and resolve the twin danger of Poverty and Insecurity and leave the prognosis of 2015 for another day. What is required at this moment is a genuine National Government during this period of political and economic uncertainties. Nigerians at the moment expect nothing short of Peace and Prosperity.