By OSADOLOR FRANCIS

How much can we talk about poverty? How often shall we be talking about it? It is a discussion for every other day. It is never exhaustible talking about it. The day we shall stop talking about poverty, it means we have arrived at our el-dorado-that is, it is comfortably well with everybody. It is el-dorado – that is, it is comfortably well with everybody. It is el-dorado we all strive to reach in every society. The striving is elastic just as tomorrow is elastic too. It is always hard to get to tomorrow. Thus, the seller will always inform his customer, “No credit today, come tomorrow”. For as long as no date is attached to tomorrow, it becomes eternally elastic, unreachable and striving to catch the air or wind.

It is obvious that poverty is endemic in Nigeria in spite of our great wealth. But unfortunately, this enormous wealth is concentrated or circulated around a few hands. While this few hands have it more abundantly, the majority have a trickle of it which make them live austere lives. This life makes them to be accounted as poor people. Since we gain Independence in 1960, because we lack purpose-driven leadership, there has been austere wisdom as to how to create the kind of economy that will boost the economic well-being of our beloved citizens. Because our leaders have themselves been poor in economic management, they lack the prudence to cause the nominal wealth to circulate more efficiently and effectively.

The billions of naira hat accrue into our national purse always find their ways into the private pockets of our leaders. And because they lack the skill to manage macro-economy, they idolatrously planned the billions into their private pockets while the majority who made up the public are left out.

Very often, we hear of sharing national cake. This cake is shared among our leaders while the public are left out. When this happens, the public will be watching helplessly and starving. You see, when jackals attack a meat, the public will helplessly watch as jackasses. Whenever we talk about a revolution, it is an uprising of the public or oppressed against their oppressors. And the oppressed constitute the majority of the general public. The oppressors never carry out a revolution against the oppressed but they can only try to strangulate the oppressed with their ways. By this, they make life very arduous and render them incapacitated.

There is a saying that when you push the goat to the wall, it will fight back. But somebody once said that when you push the Nigerian to the wall, he would prefer to break the wall to escape than to fight back. This is an unfortunate disposition of a people who want change and emhance living standard. But when the fervour of poverty becomes too much, the Nigerian may not break the wall to escape, he would rather fight back.

The lion can walk on a soldier ant, but the soldier ants can invade the den of lions and chase them away from the den. They can make the den their habitation and will never invite anyone of the lions to be their leader. They are tiny, look weak, but very deadly. That is how the public is in every society. Every lion in the den of leadership is a potential invasion victim of the solder ants public. When the day of reckoning comes, the strength and royalty of the lion’s leadership cannot save him.

Poverty is difficult for our leaders to comprehend. They cannot perceive how hard poverty is ravaging some lives in their own affluence. They exude in joy over the amount of the national cake that got to their hands, but austerely or acutely less concern what gets to the hands of the public. One thing we often or always forge is that, they never imagine themselves in the position of the poor and ponder how they survive in acute pittance. That is, if they believe that people actually live from hand to mouth. It is possible our leaders know of that idiom but cannot get the meaning from first hand experience, as it is often said that “experience is the best teacher”. Hence a good teacher must teach with example which of course, is an experience or experiment of what is being taught.

It is true that Nigeria is very rich and when one considers the stupendous wealth of Nigeria, a misinformed person would be made to believe that every Nigerian is a rich person, living a very comfortable life. It is difficult to convince the misinformed person that most Nigerians are living in abject poverty. The problem of this poverty is stemmed from the poverty of ideas on how to really and practically deploy the great wealth we have. If our leaders are adept at spending public fund meaning fully, they would lift Nigerians up from the state of socio-economic and political palsy. Perhaps this is the best way to keep the public or voters in total ignorance of how to wriggle themselves from the web of the oppressors called representatives of the people. Power is entrusted to a few individuals with the hope hat they would help to manage the national wealth efficiently and effectively. But unfortunately, the reverse is the case. There is paucity of ideas on how to invest the nation’s wealth in the economy so as to enhance our positive economic development. That is leadership poverty. When we have this type of poverty, there is bound to be massive poverty in the land. And that is our scourge in Nigeria today.

This poverty in leadership results in greed and because of this, our leaders have become ‘Mobutu Sese Sekonists, a few individuals becoming richer than the nation. They can even lend money to their own country, except that they are shying away from being frontliners in this regard. They fail to think wisely that any money that is stashed away is redundant. What is the function of the fleet of vehicles in their garages?

When the British colonized us, they never stole British public money to use in the colony and build industrial and private estates for themselves. The wealth they made in Nigeria was carried away to their own country. When we gain independence, they still refused to make Nigeria a safe haven to steal British public money for safe-keeping. But unfortunately, because of paucity of true patriotism, we see Britain and other advanced nations as our second native land.

To us, it is a great prestige to acquire British citizenship. We find that country as fertile land to steal our public fund and keep it for safe-keeping. We consider that right, whereas it is wrong. We can rape our economy and vamoose to Britain to squander our loot. This is poverty in character. And when we are poor in character, it means we are finished, despite our fabulous wealth. It means we are the poorest of the poor.

The other real poverty is the lack of material things that money can buy. This class abound in abundance in our economy. Now consider this scenario. An elderly man sends his boy to buy forty naira worth of something. As the boy was a little distance away from him, he told his father that he was going to use five naira out of the forty naira to buy biscuit. While the man asked him not to do it, the boy told him that it has been long since he ate biscuit. The father did not oblige to his desire but the boy insisted that he must buy the biscuit whether the father likes it or not. The man ran after him to collect the money and go on the mission himself. But he could not get him, but instead threatened him if he dares. This was just a street matter. This man lives in a rickety house with his family in a country with billionaire National Assembly members. Yet, they are elected to represent the interest of the public, and the man and his child inclusive.

If this family is not poverty stricken, they would not have displayed on the street over a mere forty naira. It could sound fictitious, but it is true. If I had not witnessed it, it would have been fictitious. This family is just one of the poor millions among our people. When the child in this scenario grows up in this set up, one could imagine his socio-political and economic limitation in life. If he has the ambition of becoming a senior military or Police or Custom or Immigration of Prison or Civil Defence or Federal Road Safety Corp, etc officer, he will not be able to achieve that ambition. If he is lucky, he may end up among the rank and file in one of these services. It is his level of influence that will make him to realise his dream or mar it. And if he bribes his way into the service, bribery and corruption will not be far from him.

With the great wealth the world know Nigeria for, poverty would have been weeded out of our economy with one purpose-driven stroke. If our leaders know the purpose of their leadership, they would not continue to commit one inevitable greedy error of acquiring redundant money that would have made a great positive difference in the life of the populace.

Very often we see children engaging in street trading. Does it really bother our leaders why they should be so engaged? What is the economic status of their parents or guardians that they should be out there hawking about? What is the government plan to transform their lives positively? What is the purpose of our education in schools that many graduates from various institutions of learning are jobless? If our education is tailored toward skilled acquired institutions to back up students theoretical knowledge, methink this will go a long way to raising skill driven populace.

If the billions of naira that our leaders are raking in are wisely rationalised so that the rich will not have too much to be wasting or kept redundant and the poor will not continue to live from hand to mouth, a better economy would have been created. This will, in effect spur greater economic activities, more tax will accrue to the government. With more money into the government purse, a better economic planning for general development will emerge.

The nation and indeed, everybody will be better for it. The rich will be safe with no reason to be afraid and the satisfied masses will enjoy comfort too. Nigeria needs achievable concrete economic planning record book to move the nation forward purposely. The year economic planner should move our leaders’ focus on the next plan, on the table which should be pursued with unrelenting vigour. Nigeria belong to all of us, whether we acquire the citizenship of another nation or not. We need a year economic planner to eradicate or maximally reduce poverty in Nigeria. Our economy should be galvanised through a year economic planner, and not through unfocused, unplanned and hazy vision 20:2020.

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