The presidential candidate of Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) in the country says her administration plans to lift 80 million Nigerians out of poverty through gains from oil sector deregulation, value added tax and gains from public sector efficiency.
Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili who stated this in her Twitter handle on Sunday said there was urgent need to do so because in the next 12 years, more than 30 million more Nigerians will join the infamous number of extremely poor people who live on less than N700 per day.
Ezekwesili who was Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence and Education Minister to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo further said that 88 million poor Nigerians today will move to 120 million in 2030, lamenting that extreme poverty in Nigeria is increasing by nearly six people every minute.
“According to the World Poverty Clock, if the current trends continue—or to put it another way, if we continue to elect this poverty-bringing APC/PDP leadership—the number of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria would increase from about 88 million today to 120 million in 2030.
“It means that in the next 12 years, over 30 million more Nigerians will join the infamous number of extremely poor people who live on less than N700 per day. When a country has a GINI coefficient above 35 percent, it means its income inequality is very high.
“Nigeria’s GINI coefficient is between 46 and 60 percent. Such levels of extreme inequality have destabilising implications for the country. Tackling the inequality and lifting 80 million Nigerians out of poverty will be the mission of my presidency,” she said.
The presidential candidate observed “We need to start the deliberate hardwork of pulling ourselves, our friends, our families and our communities from this destructive poverty tsunami sweeping through our nation. Time is not on our side.
“In the morning of 25 June 2018, when global news reports conveyed that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most EXTREMELY POOR people in the world, despite India’s population being seven times larger ours, I crossed into a Rubicon moment. The news that 86.9 million Nigerians assesses to be living in extreme poverty, 44% of Nigeria’s estimated 197.5 million citizens are extremely poor was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
According to her, “I detest politics, true. But I detest more governance failure and arrested development, which have made almost half of the country extremely poor. There should have been a fierce governance response to, the poverty news.
“In fact, there should have been an urgent presentation on the Federal Government’s plan to not only lift those already part of the 86.9 million in extreme poverty but to reverse the trend of many more falling into poverty, and externally, to grow a prosperous Nigeria with the usual opportunity for all citizens to thrive.
“As had been the case with the last administration and with the current one there was tepid reaction and buck passing. In effect the people would risk electing in 2019 another set of politicians from the same pool, those who still do not show any form of regret for the failure any form of regret at the failure that made us overtake India on the 2017 World Poverty Map 2017.”
She decried “This non-chalant attitude in the face of the most embarrassing evidence of government failure, by our old order political class had enough force to compel me to make my decision to run for the office of the President in 2019.
“I carry within my bones the fiercest sense of urgency for us to lift those millions of our citizens out of crippling poverty and since one does not see anyone within the horizon that can, with character, competence and capacity, lead the #ProjectRescueNigeria that isrequired to reverse the poverty trend, I arose to do so.
“With Nigeria’s population projected to rise to 264.1 million (2030) and 410.6 million (2050), and given that Nigeria’s median age in 2050 will only be 22.4 years old (slightly up from 17.9 in 2018), Nigeria, especially its young people (most of them unborn), faces an increasingly bleak future unless its citizens stand up and halt its decline.”
“Nigerians cannot afford to wait four more years for another perceived strong man, nor to settle for a lesser of two evils that is neither focused on convincing Nigerians that they have a roadmap to the future they deserve, nor possess any reformist credentials to their name.
“It is evident that Nigerians patience for ‘business as usual’ regarding the politics of this country has worn thin and they have begun the search for an alternative: a credible, untainted, and passionate leader with a track record for success at the highest levels of leadership,” Ezekwesili pointed out.
