The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), has reiterated that widespread insecurity in the country is responsible for the high levels of poverty among Nigerians.
The 36 governors, reacting to the accusation that they focused more flyovers and airports rather than improving the living standard of the people, accused the Federal Government of dereliction of duty.
In a statement by its Director, Media and Public Affairs, AbdulRazaque Bello-Barkindo, the NGF said: “First and foremost, the primary duty of any government is to ensure the security of lives and property, without which no sensible human activity takes place.”
“But the Federal Government which is responsible for the security of lives and property has been unable to fulfil this covenant with the people thus allowing bandits, insurgents, and kidnappers to turn the country into a killing field, maiming and abducting people, in schools market squares and even on their farmlands.
“This dereliction of duty from the centre is the main reason why people have been unable to engage in regular agrarian activity and in commerce,” the governors accused.
The NGF continued: “Today, rural areas are insecure, markets are unsafe, travel surety of travels are improbable, and life for the common people generally is harsh and brutish.
“The question is: how can a defenceless rural population maintain a sustainable lifestyle of peace and harmony when their lives are cut prematurely, and they wallow permanently in danger?”
As a result, the governors charged the Federal Government to stop shifting blame, saying it is wrong to abdicate itself from the raging poverty as reports showed 130 million Nigerians are wallowing in abject poverty.
Giving such a damning report, the NGF wondered “How does a minister whose government has been unable to ensure security, law and order have the temerity to blame governors?”
But the Federal Government which is responsible for the security of lives and property has been unable to fulfil this covenant with the people thus allowing bandits, insurgents, and kidnappers to turn the country into a killing field, maiming and abducting people, in schools market squares and even on their farmlands.
The blame game
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, last week, took a swipe at the 36 governors, accusing them of being responsible for the rise in poverty rate, especially in the rural areas where 72% of Nigeria’s poor citizens reside.
Agba gave the reproach while fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting on Wednesday, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
In the governors’ opinion, “The minister got his message totally wrong. His attacks are not only unnecessary, but they represent a brazen descent into selective amnesia. It is also diversionary as far as the Governors are concerned.”
“The Minister who should be responding to a question demanding to know what he and his colleague, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, are doing to ameliorate the hardship of Nigerians, attempted to defray the notion that rising levels of hunger and lack were peculiar to Nigeria.
“True as that may be Agba went further to explain that their government, through many of its social security programs, has been dedicating resources to alleviating hardship, and then goes further to accuse state governors of misdirecting resources to projects that have no impact on the people.
“While rightly pointing out that 72% of the poverty in Nigeria is found in the rural areas, the Minister said that the rural populace had been abandoned by governors.
“This assertion is not only preposterous and without any empirical basis, but also very far from the truth. It is Clement Agba’s veiled and deliberate effort as a minister, to protect his paymasters and politicize very critical issues of national importance.”
As far as the NGF is concerned, Agba’s tirade is diversionary, adding that “His attacks are not only unnecessary, but they represent a brazen descent into selective amnesia.”
