Have you spent at least a quality time in places like Lagos, Kano, Aba-Abia, Owerri-Imo, Maiduguri-Borno, and Ibadan in Oyo state and moved round the streets to behold the faces of street children and adults begging to make ends meet? Have you of late being approached by nicely dressed young men or women seeking for financial lifeline to pay their transportation fares back to their respective homes?
Have you visited the many night clubs and drinking spots in the nation’s capital and try patronising the several scantily dressed teenagers of easy virtue and experience how cheap taking a beautiful girl home for a night out can be? Have you heard or seen some young handsome boys in their early twenties hanging around some popular gardens and recreational parks that dot the landmass of Abuja looking for their rich men clients who engage in homosexualism? I have had rich experiences of all these questions posed above and I can say straight away that the situation of most Nigerians has degenerated to an unacceptable level of poverty so much so that the moral fabric of our society has broken down almost irretrievably.
The question that comes to mind is why these economic adversities and why has the various levels of government not thought it wise to provide and proffer workable panacea to the poverty problem that steers all of us in the face? From my findings it seems that most government officials in Nigeria are either unaware of what strategies to solve the growing problem of poverty or that they benefit from the impoverishment of the greatest number of the populace in Nigeria. Last week in this column we attempted an analysis of the hardship that most Abuja residents go through every day and concluded that a day in Abuja is like a thousand years in hell. I received several emails and text messages on my private line which is carried on our group’s website- www.huriwa.org and the kernel of the issues raised by some of our readers is that I was right. To each of those respondents to my last week’s piece on my column I did promise that I will revisit that topic but will specifically identify the real persons that spread poverty in Nigeria. Today we are dealing with the biggest culprits that spread poverty in Nigeria through corruption, incompetence and outright mischief and that group of people are the state Governors in the Federation. To start with we are disappointed that some state governments have reeled out their so-called budgets for this year and some of these state chief executives openly told their people to tighten their belts to await further harsh taxation regimes because of what they called World’s financial crisis and Nigeria’s declining fortunes from the export of crude oil. Imo Governor Ikedi Ohakim spent lavishly in media advert to celebrate his recent chieftaincy title from the Ooni of Ife. What is the relevance of that chieftaincy title to the growing poverty situation in Imo State?
Imo state Governor went to the ridiculous extent of telling his impoverished citizenry not to expect any project to be executed this year in their domains except in Owerri municipal area. This is very sad considering that a majority of the citizens live and do their legitimate businesses in their respective villages far away from the seat of Government in Owerri where the current state administration say it will concentrate her attention in providing developmental projects. In more civilized climes, the populace would have adopted immediate action to protest this crass abdication of his function by the Imo state Governor who in any case has never really built or completed the several developmental projects scattered across the state. For the millions of Imo indigenes who live outside Owerri, they have being told to prepare to become poorer this year. The ball is in their court to reject this retrogressive policy of the state governor.
In Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja, majority of the commoners came under severe poverty inducing government policy of demolition of their shops and living houses for allegedly constituting clogs in their state governments’ plans to bring modern development to these places. The question we ask is why government will keep inconveniencing poor people by demolishing their hard earned properties without providing compensations and alternative resettlements?
Traders at the Alaba-Rago market in Iba Local Council Development Area of Lagos State were shocked to find out during the last Christmas break that 500 shops were demolished by the Lagos State ministry of Environment even without prior notice to the traders some of whom allegedly lost properties worth several millions of naira. This despicable action of Lagos State took place five days after the state governor made a public plea urging governments and individuals with means not to neglect the poor. In fact The Guardian ran the story on December 16th 2009 whereby it quoted Babatunde Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, as saying that it is dangerous for leaders to neglect the poor even as he urged leaders to see their positions as divine calling for stewardship and not an instrument to illegitimately amass wealth. How then can any discerning reader reconcile this apparent contradiction in the preaching of Governor Fashola and the action of his ministry for Environment? It is good that today Oshodi that used to be a slum and a big eye sour has been transformed by the Fashola but at great cost to the thousands of poor people who were not provided with alternative stalls to display and sell their wares which were hitherto sold in the overcrowded and dirty Oshodi market.
In River state, government unleashed some of the heaviest human rights violations on urban poor by demolishing their water front settlements in Port Harcourt even when the people resisted the move. Government say it plans to commence urban renewal project in those areas but the people are afraid that their forced eviction without compensations violate their human rights but is anybody listening in the Rotimi Amaechi’s administration? Your guess is as good as mine. All these actions are coming from public office holders who swore to respect the 1999 constitution which makes it imperative that government must uphold the principle of transparency, good governance and welfare of the people who are the real owners of the sovereignty from whom government officials derive their legitimacy and power. Governors who spread poverty must stop. The poor people must also take their destiny in their hands.
+Onwubiko is with Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria.
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