 They sealed the breakfast and plus TV Africa and Suleiman Akande, a public affairs analyst joins us on this particular point as we look at statistics from the National Bureau right there. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, about 130 million Nigerians are poor and are living in poverty. It was actually said and reported in the 2022 multi-dimensional poverty index survey that was released in the FCT. The MBS, the figures represent 63% of the nation's population. The other that poverty index is mostly experienced in rural areas especially in the North with women and children being the most affected. Meanwhile the major used to calculate the feature of figures, I beg your pardon, was based on multi-dimensional poverty index, that's the MPI with five components which is health, living standard, education, security and unemployment. Well, according to the survey over 50% of children across the country are affected by poverty. Also, multi-dimension poverty index stood at 27% in on-dose state. The figure is estimated at 70-90% in Sokoto state, making it the worst hit by socioeconomic issues. Nigeria's sofa had maintained the infamous title of World Poverty Capital according to the World Bank since 2016. The World Bank data had showed that in every 10 Nigerians, there's a leave below the poverty line of $1.9 per day. And this is where we have a guest joining us, Sulemana Kande. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for having me. Well, I'd like to ask you, what are your thoughts generally? When you saw the statistics because it's gotten a lot of Nigerians talking, what was your first impression? Good morning viewers. First and foremost, it's a very sad situation and it should give each and every one of us concern. What I mean is that poverty has a kind of multifaceted dimension. It affects people in lots of ways. I do tell people that even when the pain of poverty is the same, the experience from individuals and places are always different. And one thing about poverty is that poverty can even be said that to be the root of all the problems that have been faced as a country, that is from terrorism, climate change, infant and maternal mortality rate, all these things can be lead to poverty. Unfortunately, in the last two, three years, we have been faced with a lot of challenges. Actually, most of these challenges are global. That is from the issue of COVID-19 and of recent, the issue of floods that has ravaged the entire country. What this does is that it only makes the poor to be more poorer. So it is a very sad one to say. But I mean, it's very sad. Too many persons are not very excited about what has happened. But how do we explain this? Because there are several initiatives by this current administration, the Boharis government, with policies targeted at job creation, also targeted at lifting a lot of persons from poverty. Once upon a time, 10.5 million persons were leaped out of poverty and fact checked, proved that we had 10 million persons who slipped into poverty. That was about in 2021. So with all of these policies that we have, I'd like to begin to mention some of them. For instance, you have an initiative by this administration, 75 billion national youth investment fund. You also have the MSMEs survival funds. These are initiatives just to cut poverty, create jobs. You have the end power. You have the agro program. You have the food initiative in schools, feeding the children and what have you. There are several programs and policies by this government. How come we have 133 million Nigerians or 130, whatever figure you put out, still living in poverty? Yeah. To be fair to the present administration, they have a robust plan for the social scheme that is being uncalled by the Ministry of Humanity, Health and Disaster Management. But I must tell you this. There is some success to be attached to some of these social investment programs. But personally, I felt they get it wrong in some other places of implementation. You can see if you look at the full set of the end power people, it was a very, it was a social story. But there is one thing we must understand. What does life hold for these people after existing the program? I think where they really got it wrong is that there is no proper sustainability plan to make sure that after these people pass through these social intervention programs, they become very independent and ability to feed for themselves among other things. And I think another program is this. Most of these programs, when they are being ruled out, it is not really getting to the main person. That is the poorest of the poor that really need this program. So what happens is that a lot of factors will now come in. People are ejecting the program. People bringing their friends and relatives into the program. People that don't even need it in the first place. So you will be surprised. I think there is some revelation in some state. Will you believe that some people that are even working already applied for the end power program, people that are even ending, the end power is supposed to be at maybe $30,000 or so. Will you be surprised that someone that isn't ending above $100K applied for the same program? So this boils down to the fact that these programs is not well tailored so that the right people will get the intervention. The same thing to the market money. To be fair to all of this government, they have ruled out one of the biggest and the largest social intervention program in the history of this country. But the problem is this. After this program, what lies ahead of people that benefit from this program? The end power program is there. You have the batch A, batch B, batch C. This thing in the poverty did not go away. So we must have a lasting solution to get all this and all these things up. That is from the implementation stage down to the exit stage whereby there will be a kind of sustainable program for those that are living. And there should also be data to monitor what happened to these people. How are they doing? What was their life and what in their life, what is it like before they come into the program? What is the life value now? So that we can now understand, are we really exiting this? It is a very sad occurrence and I believe the right ministry and the right prior status needs to go back to the joint but have a new way of solving this problem. And I think something strike me. I think there is a famous quote that most of this program, the problem we used to have is that someone says that you cannot take people out of poverty by putting money in the hand of the poor. Most of this money when it gets to the hand of the poor, it just becomes a means for them to sustain. They will just eat after eating like continuing again. You understand? Eating is for sustenance. It doesn't really take people out of poverty. So must get something that is sustainable that can give them life as I just eating gluten and shelter. So let's talk about that, you know, because a lot of persons have queried exactly the fact that we've had several policies. If you look at it from inception, it would not be the first time that you have all of the social intervention programs. And all of it is meant at taking people from poverty. I mean, moving the people away from poverty from the oppression, feed the nation, green revolution, better life for women, family economic advancement program. These are all poverty elevation programs. But how far have we fed as a people? So do you think that the issue right here is with the policy, that the policy does not reflect the needs of the people? And that's why we're still in poverty? Yes, I think that was it. The policy does not really reflect the need of the people. And I think there should be a kind of need assessment to really know what are the needs of these people. I can tell you why it is very true. Look at the statistics you rolled out earlier. Different parts of this country has different programs facing them. That is a policy or an intervention you will roll out in a particular part of the country. That particular policy may not work in another part of the country. Let me give a very good example. I did a clean energy intervention for a particular village here in Abuja. What happened is that the foundation is into clean energy, that is to supply people with solar energy. That's alternative power source. Now, in our experience over the agenda to understand that you must understand the problem of people before you even come in to provide a solution. So that you won't be giving them medicine for a day, whereby what is really wrong with them is a stormy. So when we get to the village, we took to them solar panels so that they can have a clean energy, have an alternative source of power supply. So after giving them, we installed it in virtually almost all the houses in the village. So after three months, we need to go back to at least evaluate how far this intervention has been working. You will be surprised that when we get back there, some of these solar panels and some of the bug would attach to it. Some of them are nowhere to be found. So after meeting the villagers and asked them what happened to the solar panel we installed, they said that some, we find out that some of these polar solar panels have been sold. Why some have even started using theirs for what is not meant for. So it was after they need a signal, we get to understand that it is true you can provide solar panels for these people to serve as an alternative source of energy. But poverty is tearing at them in the face. You are providing solar panels whereby these same people have not eaten and they see value in that solar panel. Instead of using it for what it is made for, what they would do instead is that they just went on to go and sell the solar panel to solve their immediate problem which is they are hungry. So we will not get to understand that if you really want to solve problem like this, we need to solve the problem of poverty first. That is if people are poor, what you should do here is that when you solve the problem of poverty, it solves a lot of other problems. That is just it. I want you to understand is this. Poverty kind of is an influencer, you understand. It's an influencer to a lot of other problems. That is from terrorism, crime, name it, you understand. So you will need to get this from the policy state, we need to go back to the drawing board. What are the lesson lines from all these social intervention programs so that we know what to really do for the people that meets their yannies and aspirations? So are you saying that we don't know what the people need? Is it that we as a country and especially those the political or the ruling class is not in the know of exactly what the people need? Is that the issue or is that we're not willing to do what we should do? It is just the will, you understand. We really know what the people need. Are you getting it? You see, they are even in their social classes who can decide to not group these people into show their social classes. Okay, let's have a kind of this one. These are the poor. This is the poorest of the poor. Okay, in this particular locality, what did they talking to someone the other time? I say one funny thing about this country. We have people who now call the urban poor. The urban poor is even so funny in the sense that the urban poor has access to all basic infrastructure of life. Every day he moves, he walks on a good road. He see pipe on water. He sees a good car. He even uses the lift. He uses the basic necessity of life. But down in the pocket, he is poor. He will not meet other aspects of life. That is an urban poor. That is a social intervention for someone that is urban poor. It would also be different from people that are rural poor. That's what I'm saying. That you know different interventions and what to do for each of these people. So the essence now is that we need to go back down to the program. The policy is okay. I can tell you, because from the empower, the first batch of the empower is a success story. A lot of them will come out and tell you that, oh, this is what they have been able to do. But I can tell you from... No, but how can the policy be okay? Because you also have said that the policy is not okay. And it probably just looks as if we're contradicting what you're saying at the same time. Because if you look at some of these policies, let's even highlight them. These are policies that are chunking monies into the hands of the people. And if you look at the index of this survey, you'll find that there are issues. There are very critical issues. Standard of living. So when you talk about the standard, how do you measure the standard of living? Standard of living is measured by your access to portable water, electricity, amongst other issues. You just move around, you see people who up until now, in 21st century, people are still drinking water from the stream. And these are the issues. So how then is empower solving the problem? Does empower solve the problem of having a motorable road, go through the roads, even in the open areas? You still can't even have a 20 minute ride because there are potholes everywhere. So how does empower solve that? How does even giving children food, maybe biscuits or what have you, during the day, solve the problem of poverty when their parents are not able, you know, to provide the basic needs and things that they need for. How can what of you? Look at the health infrastructure. So I really like to understand if really you're saying that it's not the issue of policy formulation because we have told this slide every other time. We come up with policies to throw monies to people and, you know, give them handouts, 5,000 monthly. Does that really solve the real issue? Yeah, I can tell you because policy has never been our problem in this country. Our problem has always been implementation. You will be surprised that if you have access to some of these policy documents that create some of this program, you have fantastic idea in there. But the problem is, as I told you earlier, this money or this social intervention is getting to the wrong hand. That is by influence by external forces, it may be politicians or those saddled with the responsibility of making sure that this thing gets to the right people. Now, you must understand one thing. Most of this special intervention, they are designed for various classes of this society. For example, an MPOWER is mostly for some graduate and at least people that are at a secondary school certificate. You have the SPW from the specials on something work program by the Ministry of Labor, among other things. Then you have the market and trade that money, you have the market to my money and the likes. Now, the thing is this, I can tell you they are part of this country that the whole capital, some of these people, you won't need to set up a business at 10,000, 20,000 and the likes. But when the money is not getting to the right people, it becomes a problem. You understand? So when it comes to implementation and enforcing standard, that is where we are getting on that. They come in, need to sit right and make sure that the right people get the money so that the money doesn't get into the wrong people's hand and are moving away from that. This also, it's very sad, as I said earlier, that more than 30 million poor Nigerians, that's a very bad one because you know on funny thing again, most of these poor people, they are young people that are even less than 30 years of age. Right? If you go to some local government, in this part of the country, you have places that they don't even have access to portable water, they don't even have access to health, they don't even have access to good road, motor road. So all the social intervention program needs to be rigid. And I've told you, people have had a lot of argument if this is really working or not. And I said earlier that what really happened is someone, someone says that what we should be doing is that we don't put money in the hand of these people. When you put money in the hand of someone Suleiman. So I think I'm still saying one and the same thing here that if we have all of this social intervention program, how come you still have 133 million Nigerians in poverty? What exactly are we doing with it? How has all of this social intervention program addressed the critical issues that have been mentioned, which is an index? We have talked about power education, you know, standard of living healthcare and what a view. It brings me back to, you know, the next part of this conversation, which is about, if you look at the index as well, it says that those in the rural community are the ones who are suffering the most in terms of poverty. And so do you think that the local government as a thought here of government has lived up to expectation of bringing development to the people? Not at all. And we can't really blame them. The local government has been rendered very incapacitated. Should I put it that way in this part of the world? Then look at this now. How many local governments even have independent finance whereby they can spend money on their home? Which only local government is carrying out a program on their home. So one thing, one good thing we need to do is if we want to move away from all these problems, we need to take the government very close to the people. That is by empowering the local government. The right law needs to be looked into. Look, there is the other time, I think the local government autonomy law is here to be signed into law, whereby it gives power to every local government in this country. I do tell people, we raise some of these issues now. The issue of primary healthcare, the issue of after school children, among other things, all these fall into the poverty of the local government. So the local government as it is today has not been living to its expectation and we all know why some of these local government are just a tool in the hand of some of these governors. So how come, you know, the constitutional review I mean that was ongoing had not addressed some of these concerns that you have mentioned? Yeah, they did not get the required vote to make sure that the local government have full autonomy. I think if I get it right, I think only about thirty states, out of the thirty six status of assembly signed and endorsed that the local government autonomy, the other state did not give approval to that. We have to go now. Suleiman, thank you so much for being part of the show. We can only continue to talk about these issues and we hope that those who are calling the shots would actually take the right action and that's the only way, you know, we'll get out of all of this. But we appreciate you Suleiman Akande for being part of the show. Thank you very much. Suleiman Akande is a public affairs analyst. He joins us this morning from the FCT and that's it on our first major conversation. We take a break and when we return we'll be looking at the World Cup just few more days before it begins. What are the expectations? Stay with us.