 మరిలెర్, మరిసి మానిలియెరంకేంనినిసాపారరనిసిరిడిరం. And this can lead to social unrest and undermined economic growth. This is why poverty elevation in Nigeria is important because it can help to improve the lives of millions of people, boost economic growth and create a more stable and prosperous society by lifting people out of poverty. Nigeria can create a better future for all. So last week we got reports that the federal government recently dispersed about two billion out of five billion naira palliti package for each state of the federal, the federation and the federal capital territory to address the impact of removal of subsidy. Now this has posed an important question on the strategies being implemented by the government to question the effect of the fuel subsidy removal as well as alleviate poverty in the land. So today we are asking, referencing the palliti distribution, what are the sustainable strategies to alleviate poverty in Nigeria? Now please, let's hear what you have to remember. You can join the conversations and send us an SMS of what happens when you want. 80384663. Let me hear your thoughts of one minute and I'll bring in the comments. What do you think? First of all, do you agree with the palliti structure that is being put? Or do you think it can be done better? No, it can definitely be done better and it's just a short-term solution. Even if we were to call it a solution, I mean, if you need to understand the root causes of poverty and if Nigeria is saying that there is a serious partner to the UN or SDG goals, that's zero hunger, I don't think we're doing too good a job. I think we can do better, but we have to go to the drawing table and actually look at solutions that would work, financial literacy, education. I mean, there will be so much. It has to be billion palliters. How are you financing? Definitely, I still stand on the opinion that poverty is weaponized. And that only explains why you would get a pack of noodles and have rice and stuff and give it to people and believe that you're doing them well. These are things that they are entitled. You don't even have to do it. Put structures in place and people can provide that. 63% of Nigerian multidimensionally poor that is an alarming rate. And for a country that has so much resources, I don't think there's any palliative they would give or announce even if they reach 2 million people in one hour. I cannot clap for them because it's what we are entitled to. I'm not impressed. Suike Mesidefiang is a legal practitioner, geopolitical analyst, research consultant and communications professional and public affairs commentator. He's currently head of research at SBM Intelligence and Africa Focus Risk Consultancy a Nigerian foremost geopolitical intelligence firm based in Lagos where he manages a diverse research team that spans all Nigeria's 36 states as well as Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and South Africa. He has had a long career in political blogging has acted as an outside consultant to four Nigerian governorship races has managed regulatory and compliance affairs as well as strategic communications for a number of Nigerians and international multinationals. Yes, we got the right candidate for this conversation because thank you so much. Wait, this is your first time. This is my first time in studio. Literally we've had interview since we started Waze in 2019 but this is literally his first time in studio. Thank you so much. We're honored to have you but we can miss it there. We've been waiting for you on this conversation and I specifically told on the lot that I needed someone that understood because again somehow we know your work. We know how far you've gone at your company to do a lot of ground work, a lot of research. So I don't just want us to talk like because again sometimes when you have conversations like this it seems like you are attacking a system. I don't want us to sound like we are attacking anybody. These are data. This is figures. This is numbers that they've given to us. And every time I hear a government announce that they want to give palliatives it just rubs me off from it like literally I cringe. Like do you guys understand that this thing is beyond rice and beans? Do you understand like there is poverty and if for anything, if we've never ever thought about poverty like people have been saying it that poverty is weaponized in this country. If you've never thought about it before, the events that have happened between the weekend or the death of whatever till this afternoon where there was a huge hot clash it tells you that there's a huge role that poverty plays in some of these things because you can only recruit people that they feel like there's really nothing for me. And one of those things that makes them feel that way is if they are poor. So just help me understand. You're looking through the structure of what the government has said about palliatives. What are your thoughts? And how do you think we can even come out of maybe raise our heads out of the water? You've asked a lot. First of all, it's an absolute pleasure to be here finally. I know I've been a Zoom supporter for three years plus, but it's good to be in the studio. Poverty, I don't even know where to start to be honest. The thing we did palliatives process that first let's understand is a stopgap and even as stopgaps go, this is probably not the best that we could have done. We spent almost 10 times more rights to manage COVID for example and we didn't do a good enough job right managing the COVID pandemic. Then the primary challenge though that I have with this particular scheme is that as a researcher, as someone who deals with data especially as someone who goes out into the field and I have colleagues who go out into the field when we think about structuring a study or a scheme or any kind of field research, we think about what our target respondents is. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do? How are we going to most effectively and efficiently reach them? And this is just us as a company just doing our own thing on behalf of clients. It's not clear to me from all of the communications from all of the governments so we get around the palliative scheme that they particularly know who these things are addressed at. They don't know their keywords. So how do you design something that is supposed to address a client present need that researchers showed us a plurality depending on the data you look at a majority of Nigerians are sealed by if you don't know who they are, and how you're going to reach out to them. No one has given us those numbers. The National Social Insurance Register which was only really built up in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic class I checked was about 1.6 million, 1.7 million Nigerian households which sounds like a lot but when you think about how many Nigerian households are out there it's really a drop in the bucket and that register was specifically built towards certain states and certain parts of the country yes the states that have the most need but then there's need everywhere and that's the thing about poverty in Nigeria and that's why researchers talk about multi-dimensional poverty which is that this is not just a situation of I don't have money in my pocket is that I don't have money in my pocket and I most likely don't have a job and I most likely am related to people that are in the same situation with me and so the prospects of me actually breaking out what's called the poverty trap is really really hard so it's not clear that the government has done that level of thinking first the announcement was a bit rushed it happened very early in the life cycle of the administration it's not clear that there were policy planners or they consulted with policy thinkers in this space where designing that scheme secondly the amount we are talking about are very small it's not clear how long the palliative scheme is going to last it's not clear how many people will be targeted by this even the distribution mechanisms the federal government may comment about them channeling those resources through the state government but very few state governments will try to come out to say what they are going to do we are seeing again like you said we are seeing the indomie and the half tuba of yam and the beans and how many cups of rice and so it just feels like more of the same and I think from a lot of what we are hearing and we do a fair amount of social issues research Nigerians are actually more frustrated with a slightly bad idea executed poorly than you are not doing anything at all because with the latter at the very least people would know okay you don't know what you are doing or you didn't do anything with the other you are demonstrating you have the capacity to address this issue but you are not addressing it effectively which is even more of an insult to many of these people and that's at the heart of all of the frustration all of the strife of the people living in the country and all of the insecurity really that you are seeing in the country the way I always put it is people who own businesses and own houses don't go and strike they don't riot they are not socially maligned it's people like you said who don't have a stake in the system who are perfectly fine with destroying what other people have because at the very least they are bringing you down to where they are is they thinking crabs in a bucket let's take a break right when we come back from that break I know Diola and Sansi have a question stay with us over right back alright thanks for staying with us now if you just tuned in we are discussing sustainable strategies to alleviate poverty in Nigeria and we have with us remember you can join the conversation ok so my question to you is how can Nigeria we know the problem so how can Nigeria leverage the vast resources we have in order to further a more robust economic solution because I actually feel that if we look at it from an economic perspective we are more likely to begin to see some way forward to say ok maybe if we put this kind of structure in place then we can you know it can work directly with solving poverty issues but not how would I say it ok let me stop at that alright yeah I think I have got a question I think the first thing is to have a very good plan and I know people get frustrated because here in Nigeria are very good at writing policy documents very good at making those announcements and all of those things but one of the fundamental challenges that all of those plans and efforts have had is that they have not had a lot of multi-stakeholder imputes so are you talking to people at the forefront of addressing poverty are you talking to business owners people that you expect to employ people which is in the end the most sustainable funnel to not only get people out of poverty but actually keep them out of poverty if none of us have jobs none of us will have an income to be in the mode so actually having a good plan that counts for all of the perspectives of every side of this conversation it's critical and it's important this is state government local government level civil society, religious culture institutions whatever it is I try to talk to people and figure out what is the cause of the problem poverty might be pervasive in Nigeria it's self differently right across the country so the average purpose in Lagos in many other parts of the country might be close to low and middle income for example so whatever approach you are going to take to solving the poverty situation in Lagos will be different from what you are doing in Aqaibom or Adama or in the north especially in the north I would argue so that's the first part the second part is what are the advantages that Nigeria has lots of people talk about our vast human resources what does that mean people talk about vast natural resources what does that mean for me personally and this is something that we've talked about a fair amount at SBM Nigeria has some very big advantages one is the cost of labour here in Nigeria is very very low we enter into various sectors at some of the beginning stages which is how every country that has ever developed in the world really started the second is what predominantly English speaking the third is a geographic location when the same time when we are in Europe we are not that far behind North America we are not that far ahead we are not that far behind Asia and the Middle East so we can be like the Philippines we can be like India we can be an outsourcing capital of the world the majority of Nigerians more than 60% of Nigerians are younger than the 4 of us who are sat here and none of us are really that old that's my assumption I can only speak for myself I can only speak for myself precisely so think about that the resources so if you pair that for example with a massive and a proper infrastructural development plan it means immediately right you can employ tens of millions of Nigerians to build roads, build rail build schools build all of these things out there right now there are many Nigerians who are in a position where they can't afford to be choosers I don't know if you guys have had kind of the same experience I've had where someone reaches out to you and they are like I'm looking for work and I'm like okay what kind of work do you want I'm like anything I'm telling you for the most part right in our circles have some education and none of that with a lot of Nigerians that are not in that position they can't pretty much do anything so with a well designed skills acquisition scheme paired to particularly for me infrastructure and agriculture but I don't think about agriculture the way our politicians do the way our politicians think of agriculture is give a tractor here give fertilizer here for example one big up we have in agriculture is the absolute lack of agriculture extension workers so people that continually coach and teach farmers this is how your harvest performs last year if you tweak year and year if you use the right mix of fertilizing weeding crop and pest control and all of that this is what you can do and this is something that Nigeria used to be really good at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibaduan is situated there for a reason it's a world leader in agricultural research so we have assets already on hand that we can leverage you just need someone who is thinking broadly in a way that makes sense in a way that is systemic and it's crazy and in the end why lots of people including you believe that poverty is weaponized is because if you're able to hand people crumbs and people see you as the crumbs handler they would become dependent on you and that gives you a hold and a power over them and it's not sustainable in the long term because those people are very good friends they like to say there's a particular project that we did in 2018 or 2019 in our state and so Chetan and a colleague of ours were in a village not far from Lafia and he met someone who was this exact age born the same year born the same month born almost to the same week and he had three children two wives and the two wives were pregnant at the time and a person was a police officer so the question then becomes what is the plan for Nigeria for that five, six family household and the point is when you replicate that right across the country the average fertility of the average Nigerian is 4.6 4.7 so the average Nigerian woman will give her to four plus children in their lifetime so in essence our population is set to double in 25 years if we have a problem with providing for Nigerians now think of the Nigerians that are on their way right so it's a really really big problem as it were and I think in the end the one bit of optimism that I have is that clearly unsustainable so at some point the entire apocat will break right and something will have to be done the challenge is often times you can have change in a systemic and orderly way or you can have it violent and we chaos right if you and that is where the thing is scary when I saw that a police person saying that all the young people he did not say some he didn't say most he said all the young people in Shagam are all cultists but I was just waiting because like you said if these people do not take time to find a way to build a sustainable structure that alleviates poverty these kinds of violence it will the change will come but it will come violent sometimes let me come to you so interesting conversation so if I enjoy listening to you you talked about skill acquisition as one of the more realistic ways of poverty allegation now I am looking at the other side of it as someone who constantly walks the line between the super poor and the super wealthy right so I have been in situations where maybe the government works into some village and says here are 50 people skill acquisition I am teaching you to sew I am teaching you to do this and you are done learning the skills but then it's either you don't have the equipment to do that and you don't have the funds to handle that or they give you the equipment like maybe they give you a baker or they give you a sewing machine and you find out that you don't have the electricity so at the end of the day you have all those things packed in your house but you don't have the electricity or you can't afford to buy the gas so you were talking about the news price of cooking gas is about to skyrocket to 18,000 for 12.5 so for this skill acquisition how realistic is it as a more as a better option according to what you said realistic if you think about it in a holistic and in an intelligent manner the challenge is we've done skill acquisition schemes in silos we've just done it wrongly so think about what are the advantages that we have what kind of country do you want to build as a policy maker and then offer incentives the main thing that government does is to offer incentives and create the right environment for people to actually go and solve the problems the challenge with governance in Nigeria is that oftentimes the government either doesn't want to do a thing or if it decides to do a thing it lives entrepreneurs and all of that in the middle I was reading a newsletter this morning and the company that was the initial private sector partner for the national identity scheme said they lost 100 million dollars working with government so they don't want to work with government again so that just underscores the collaboration gap that exists on the governance side of things so the right thing I think is to create the right incentives for example as many intelligence right now we are advising a coalition of civil society organizations that are trying to figure out how to make non-profit sector regulation work in Nigeria and one of the chief complaints they have is that government is all good and great and they talk a good game but after all the meetings and after the seminars and all of that stuff they go behind the scenes and they write these really really interesting regulations that really only exist to protect their interests and to unlock the abilities of people to get things done so that's where sort of the mismatch is right so what's my very very very very rough draft of a policy prescription around this would be is to think about what are the things that we want Nigeria needs to be globally competitive right how do we pay that to the needs that we currently have we have to feed people, we have to house people we have to give them jobs and then begin to write up a policy that basically either gives people tax incentives if they invest in ABCDEFG priority areas and then lease the priorities right so that it encourages people that have money and are sitting on money to go out there and get things done a young friend of mine actually went to New York passion school and by the time she came back she actually I think at some point she wanted to even approach the government her state government because you see many of us are wearing anything about here Jonas my shoes are this is where I'm coming with this is where I'm coming with this is where I'm coming with ABBA has the capacity to become a a trillion dollar or even if it's a a gazillion dollar industry why because they've been able to even with the limited resources they've been able to replicate things that you will not believe that it is coming from that place do you understand what I'm saying so she saw what they did in New York for instance like in New York there are people that their speciality is just to fix this boat on this shit that's the only thing they do so it is a massive wealth like it's extremely expensive land all with machines some people is just to sew the zip on the dress some people is just to put the boat in everybody has put you see that value chain by the time they churn out all those apparel it goes to the stores in common do you understand so she was saying that why can't we replicate this thing in Nigeria because we already have the market enough like literally these guys are doing exceptionally well without even this mainstream machineries now imagine if you equip them with those machineries we are not only getting so we are now cutting off important clothes we are not only getting the right quality material we are also getting the right fit the right tailoring so if I tell you it's size 12 you are seeing exact size so it's not you know just equip them because they already have the skills you know tomorrow that in the non-city light yeah sure and I tell you what I've been thinking about tailoring a lot recently in fact I was having a conversation with friends we can use the fashion industry as a micro causing for entertainment for business for energy and all of that so it's two big things the first challenge that your friend has and probably run into was how land regulation works in Nigeria so one of the big things that we have to do for example in order to get people out of poverty right is to amend the land use act and this is something that's not very intuitive because many people don't understand it but think about this it's difficult to sell property in Nigeria it's difficult to acquire property in Nigeria because not necessarily because the resources are in there or the interest on both sides of the party are in there but that issue of governance concerns in big deal the issue of overriding public interest so you may have had land that has been in your family for generations and many people know it's an avenue of wealth because banks can lend to you on the basis of property you can use property to set up a company set up something from your own home especially if you are not renting because these days landlords in cities like Lagos and Abuja will tell you my property only residential and all of those things so land is a very important thing but you can have property in your generation and because the government decides they want to build something they can legally requisition it I'm just paying compensation and you have no recourse in it it's literally written in the books so it's a big deal countries like Japan and Taiwan basically gave farmers they basically told farmers people who have been serves for generations they basically said the land you will have for free but make sure productivity wise you meet so so and so target if you meet this you have access to more land loans at much more favorable favorable interest rates in some cases I think particularly in Japan how the local governments to then compete amongst themselves so some prefectures in Japan would offer scholarships to the kids of farmers that did well and the kids of those farmers where the people that ended up entering the factories of Toshiba and Yota and all of these places and all of these products that we now consume and that was how that cycle of development started and Taiwan did this China is doing this now Singapore did this the template is clear it's been done by many countries around the world Nigeria's problems are no unique there were parts of western Europe that in our grandfather's lifetime they were killing and stuttering themselves the way people got slaughtered for example today in Shagamu they figured it out we can figure it out it's a matter of keeping our leaders honest and accountable that's the big gap so basically leaders are indifferent or they have lack of poor prioritization the incentives don't make sense for them to deliver so let me tell you what for example China did China for example paired promotion within the communist party of China which is the only political party in China to delivering in your home district so if your home district or if your province was one of the economic stars you were attracting business people were in jobs your unemployment rate was low your education enrollment rate and your TMS scores were high economy growth was high you were guaranteed a spot of the next ladder Nigerian politics is not wired that way Nigerian politics rewards loyalty and longevity whether you work or you do not work as long as you are loyal to your what's he called your godfathers your good so it doesn't even encourage productivity as an economy it doesn't at all so if the incentives are aligned for politicians to get things done they will do it when we see politicians move and do things is because the incentives are aligned for them to do that you would always have a constitutional amendment exercise every year because the incentives are such that there will be a big budget there will be a big show I was the one who made these amendments happen and all so the incentives work for them they will do that elections violence so they are violent so it's not like our politicians are unintelligent and I speak to I talk to a lot of them but the thing is the incentives don't work for them to do the things we want them to do so that's the hard work that Nigeria has to do and it's going to take a while and it's going to adjust why I'm madly optimistic is that we cannot keep running Nigeria the way we are running it now indefinitely it's not possible there are two countries that have the countries that have done that are either too small or too insignificant there are a lot of Nigerians out here at some point all of the people that are slaughtering themselves when they've run out of people to slaughter people to kidnap and all of that we'll go and look for the people that have money and if the political class is the only place where wealth is concentrated in guess who will be the next target so do we want it to be through that approach or do we want to think smartly and coherently about how we want to fix this country and start doing the hard things to get there those are our choices that's a tough question I mean like now hearing you speak it's not like these things are not you're not far-fetched like us that were farmers now for research we have almost maybe 200 hectares of land now we see they wait for governor consent because by now if we had a proper documentation CEO would have gone to bank of industry giving us loan would have probably doubled all the machines on the farm you can anytime the foreign partners no you don't even brought the foreign partners we could have brought the foreign partners we are already milling the farm we just need a bigger milling plant expand the land but you see these things like that's what I'm saying that let me just wrap with this final question is there a wealth power with these politicians do they have the wealth power to really alleviate poverty truly bank on poverty to continue to govern because look at what is happening across all the African countries all the garbons because whether we like it or not if we get to that point this time there will not be any time to do any conversation and I don't like violence I believe that we can always solve the problem but do you see that there is even a wealth power to even get these things done sorry let me add to wealth power and the competence so you just made a hard question thank you and the competence because I think that's very important because sometimes it's important to also know that you cannot give what you don't have actually I can't think about it the competence bit is actually harder so as always as giving me wealth I think so the competence for the most part is there because the thing about competence is if you don't have it you can hire it and a lot of these guys at the highest level are surrounded with people often competent people who think who can be gotten at so competence can be gotten at the real question is the wealth power because if the wealth power exists even if the competence doesn't exist in the country you can't find it you import competence not people that import you go and find it and we've been doing this from time immemorial when the Japanese for example and I love doing this because the best book I read this year was which basically talked about how Japan, Taiwan China, South Korea figured it out and developed what Japan did was in the 1860s after the opening of they basically said who are the best people doing things who builds the best ships who has the best educational system who has the best political system and they went there and studied it and they imported them so the Germans trained the Japanese army the British trained the Japanese navy they learnt politics from the Americans so they basically crowd source so it's absolutely possible the question is wealth power to do this if we get to a point for example where king Things are militants in certain parts of the country say it doesn't finish it doesn't finish it's still not what you want to come back it will have to be back before we go and you show and when you show Africa you can interact with all the four other drop your message, like, share, comment we will bring the cover sit back now if you miss this quote here it is again quickly కినిచ్లినితకామిగిలి మ౪ెకంధకానానిగీందికిసంనాలెజెకికితినాతికింటుసికరియుగిసంవావి నవాచారంనటీవెనికికెకికిరికిల్లికి. sometimes it falls on a generation to be great you can be that generation let your greatness blossom we'll see you guys tomorrow at 8 pm us we'll bring another great conversation to your screen