AMID exponential growth of poverty among Nigerians, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to probe his administration’s spending on social intervention programmes.
SERAP deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, made the call in a statement seen by The ICIR on Sunday.
A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that about 133 million Nigerians are living in different categories of poverty.
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The report also showed that over half of Nigeria’s population are multidimensionally poor and cook with dung, wood or charcoal, rather than with cleaner energy.
It showed high deprivations are also apparent nationally in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity, and housing. Half of all poor people are children.
In its reaction, SERAP expressed worries that such numbers of people representing 68 per cent of the country’s population could be living in poverty despite huge spending of N500 billion yearly by the Buhari administration on poverty alleviation programmes.
It said that the report suggested a grave violation of the public trust, and the lack of political will to genuinely address poverty, and uphold government’s constitutional and international human rights obligations.
SERAP, therefore, asked Buhari to set up an impartial presidential panel of enquiry to thoroughly and transparently investigate government’s poverty interventions in the past seven years.
It also urged him to publish widely the panel’s report, and make the suspected perpetrators of corruption and mismanagement of public funds meant to take care of the poor face prosecution as appropriate, if there is sufficient evidence, as well as ensure that any stolen public funds are recovered.
“The report that 133 million Nigerians are poor suggests corruption and mismanagement in the spending of trillions of naira on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes, including the reported disbursement of over $700 million from the repatriated Abacha looted funds to these programmes,” it said.
The anti-coruption vanguard noted that the Buhari administration has legal obligations to effectively and progressively address and combat extreme poverty as a matter of human rights.
SERAP said the failure to address extreme poverty had resulted in high levels of inequality and serious violations of economic and social rights of Nigerians, particularly the socially and economically vulnerable sector of the population.
It stressed that the grim revelations by the NBS showed government’s failure to fulfil its oft-repeated promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
“The report also shows that the purported social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes are clearly not working. It also shows a failure by your government to uphold the constitutionally and internationally guaranteed human rights of the Nigerian people,” SERAP told the President.
It urged Buhari to prioritise investment in quality education and healthcare, and to redirect some of the unnecessary spending in the 2023 budget – such as spendings by the Presidency on feeding and travels, and money allocated to the National Assembly in the budget – to address poverty as a human rights issue.
It reminded that the Federal government has a sacred duty to ensure transparency and accountability in the spending of the country’s resources, including the spending of public funds on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects.
SERAP wrote, “Section 14(2)(b) of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] provides that ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.’
“Under Section 16(1)(a)(b), your government has the obligations to ‘harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy’, and to ‘secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen.’
“Nigeria has also ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognize legally enforceable economic and social rights, such as the rights to education, health, safe food and clean water, security, and shelter.
“Nigerians have the right to be free from poverty. Extreme poverty is the greatest denial of the exercise of human rights, as it denies millions of Nigerians not only their economic and social rights, but also civil and political rights such as the rights to life, human dignity and political participation.
“Political freedom and participation are closely related to human development. Without economic and social rights, people cannot effectively enjoy their political freedom. Therefore, effectively and progressively addressing poverty would improve the ability of Nigerians to exercise their political freedom and to have choices in life.”
It lamented that successive governments had systematically neglected social and economic rights, and failed to address severe poverty and inequality in the country.
It blamed the Buhari-led Federal government for its failure to promote the legal recognition of economic and social rights in the Nigerian Constitution, which would allow people living in poverty to seek redress for violations of their human rights.
It added that the allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the spending of public funds on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects would clearly amount to a fundamental breach of national anti-corruption laws and the country’s international anti-corruption obligations.
SERAP noted that the consequences of corruption are felt by citizens on a daily basis, noting that it exposes them to additional costs to pay for health, education and administrative services.
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