Poverty, greatest challenge to Nigeria, says U.S. envoy

Sanders made the submission yesterday while delivering the keynote address at the Isaac Moghalu Foundation (IMoF) inaugural leadership lecture and symposium at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos. The inaugural lecture and symposium was entitled, “Governance and Poverty in Nigeria: Challenge and Opportunity.”

The U.S. envoy noted that the 2003/2004 Nigeria Living Standards Survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics with the support of international technical assistance estimated a national poverty rate of 54.4 per cent, with 75.5 per cent of Nigerians seeing themselves as being poor.

“There are 30 million primary school children in Nigeria, yet as many as half of these do not attend primary school,” she said.

According to her, Nigeria also has the third largest number of people in the world who suffer from the HIV/AIDS scourge.

She explained that the cancer of corruption, “especially systemic corruption, is among the most powerful forces undermining good governance and poverty alleviation in Nigeria, siphoning financial resources and creating barriers to investment, commercial activities, economic growth and most importantly, to development.”

Calling Nigeria’s needs in terms of development “daunting,” Sanders stressed that an investment in people was the thrust of the U.S. policy in partnering Nigeria to alleviate poverty, adding that the approach of the U.S. was focused on providing programmes that could be repeated throughout Nigeria by the Federal Government and through working with other international donors and civil society.

She said: “We implement our programmes in full support of and in coordination with the federal, state and local governments, as well as civil society, NGOs and academics.

“We also applaud President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda, which prioritises wealth creation in the agricultural and solid minerals sector, and raises the importance of food security, land reform and education as poverty-fighting measures.”

The envoy added that President George W. Bush had recently announced a $200 million package to assist with the recent food security challenges on the African continent.

Also at the lecture, chairman of the Ogoni-Shell Reconciliation Commission, Rev.Fr.

Matthew Kukah, who was one of the panelists, said that the problem of poverty in the country was tied to land ownership, noting that a review of the 1976 Land Use Decree which placed land ownership in the country in the custody of the government would assist in solving the problem of poverty.

He stressed that land ownership was central to the situation in the Niger Delta.

His words: “Nigeria has absolutely no business with poverty.”

Chairman, IMoF, Kingsley Moghalu, stressed that Nigeria was suffering from “the curse of plenty” and that there was a need to reverse the trend.

Other panel members at the lecture were Chief Arthur Mbanefo, former Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations (UN) and Prof. Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School (LBS).

The IMoF, a non-profit charitable organisation, was established to support access to education in under-privileged rural communities in Nigeria, the development of human capital and promotion of social change.