DESPITE over N3.5 trillion spent by the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration, most of the Federal Government’s social intervention schemes failed to make the needed impact by lifting many Nigerians out of poverty, industry experts say.
Industry experts said the failure occurred due to poor planning and lack of direction.
Some of the National Social Intervention Programmes (NSIP) include Home Grown School Feeding Programmes (GSFP), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), N-Power, National Social Safety Net Programme (NASSCO), and the National Cash Transfer Programme (N-CTP) otherwise called ‘Trader Moni’.
Industry analysts who spoke with The ICIR observed that the lack of coherence in the scheme didn’t give room for proper accountability and evaluation.
Last week, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Beta Edu, said the government was probing intervention schemes by the previous administration in her ministry, citing corruption concerns in their implementation.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Beta Edu.
The Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Ministry does not carry the corruption badge alone; the intervention schemes executed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with N1.27 trillion reportedly spent on them, are currently being probed.
Accordingly, the CBN Governor, Oluyemi Michael Cardoso, said plans were underway to stop intervention programmes of the apex bank and shift the responsibility to other development banking institutions in the country as the bank undergoes a probe of its interventions.
For the Professor of Law at the Baze University and a Public Affairs analyst, Sam Amadi, huge social intervention policies of the government running into billions of naira require strategic thinking and approach to deliver impact.
“Strategic thinking is about how to design the policies to respond to the complexities of your problems. The failure of the interventions is a result of not asking the right questions, analysing the right context and designing intervention schemes to solve the real issues,” he said.
“Lack of central coherence and lack of drilling down of big projects is our problems. Big projects don’t execute themselves; they require lots of thinking. It’s all about strategies of execution and tactics and how you deliver,” he further said.
Amadi questioned the exit plan of most of the intervention policies, which he said gave room for undue interference by political interests.
“The exit should be factored into the project design and carefully thought out. It will enable proper accountability of the projects. This has a lot to do with project accountability.
“When projects have no proper exit plans, they’re likely to run endlessly, and interests creep in to exploit the programmes and policies.
A similar concern was raised by a development economist, Celestine Okeke, who said the government’s knee-jerk approach to its intervention policies keeps dragging its impact.
Celestine Okeke believes the “knee-jerk approach” drags intervention programmes
“Most often, the projects are hurriedly done in a knee-jerk approach to satisfy political interests and not to solve real problems. We need to have proper thinking on the schemes to achieve its aim.
There have been concerns about the social safety register for Nigeria’s intervention programmes, with many eyebrows raised on how the registration is conducted across different geopolitical zones.
On assumption of office in 2015, Buhari established the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) to address the immediate and long-term socio-economic imbalance, alleviate poverty and act as a stimulant to further economic growth.
He promised in June 2019 to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
He said his administration would offer leadership with a sense of purpose by vehemently fighting poverty. “With leadership and a sense of purpose, we can lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years,” the President declared. However, the administration left 133 million people in various categories of poverty, indicating that his policies and intervention schemes failed to work.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.