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Poverty Alleviation Is A Serious Challenge Guardian 2000-01-16 Mr. Abayomi Sheba is a member of the Federal House of Representatives, representing Irele-Okitipupa Constituency in Ondo State. In a state controlled by Alliance for Democracy (AD), Sheba won the election into the House of Representatives under the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Recently, the House established a Committee on Poverty Alleviation and appointed Sheba as chairman of the committee. In this interview with Staff Correspondent Dickson Adeyanju, Sheba outlined how his committee of 30 members intends to tackle poverty alleviation in Nigeria. Excerpts: ICan you tell us how the decision by members of the House to establish the committee was reached? Well, the Committee on Poverty Alleviation was established by the Speaker of the House through a resolution passed about two months ago. The focus of the committee is to actually oversee the activities of poverty alleviation agencies of the Federal Government, bearing in mind that poverty alleviation is the main thrust of the present administration. It is a known fact that over 70 per cent of Nigerians cannot afford to take a good meal in a day. For an administration that is serious about addressing poverty, this is a very serious challenge. So the House resolved that we should address this ugly phenomenon and through the grace of God and the Speaker of the House, I was made the chairman of this committee. How does the committee intend to address this issue? As I said earlier, we will oversee the activities of the Federal Government agencies that are directly involved in poverty alleviation, such as the Peoples Bank of Nigeria and the Community Banks. We want to see that all these agencies are involved actively in addressing the level of poverty in our country. But apart from these, we have equally defined ways through which poverty can be managed in the country. Nigeria is not the only one that is faced with the issue. China faced it, but today China has been able to manage its own poverty level. We are going to understudy such cases to make ours equally as successful. India, with its population, has also been able to manage it. We shall equally do it and I can assure you that the Speaker of the House is determined to see that we succeed in this endeavour. I want to also assure Nigerians that my committee will work seriously in handling the issue. It is an ugly issue staring at the face of everyone. We have identified two key areas through which we can succeed. First, we believe that our people must be thoroughly educated. If you are educated, you should be able to cater for yourself and your family. You should be able to fend for yourself. This is the number one weapon through which we can fight poverty in Nigeria. We also believe that through education, our people will be freed from the clutches of superstition which leads us to the second point which is that of health. Our people should be made to know the importance of cleanliness. These are the key areas. How do you intend to achieve these noble goals? We are designing programmes for the government in which these areas will be directed towards poverty alleviation. We also intend to encourage the Federal Government to be more involved in small-scale lending scheme to our farmers who do not have the opportunity of acquiring formal education. We intend to re-invigorate the Peoples Bank of Nigeria to make it more responsive to the yearnings and needs of our rural people and for it to live to its expectation. It is a people’s bank; it is not for millionaires but an institution where micro-credit people are involved. That is where the local people should look up to for assistance in financing their small-scale projects. Our Community Bank is more or less dead today. This should not be the case. This is a bank that should cater for the needs of communities that must have pulled their resources together. And with the assistance of the government, they should be able to draw loans from these banks. Only very few communities today have functional community banks. This ought not to be so. In this sense, we are talking of real rural people who go on bicycles. Those who wake up at 5 a.m. and head for their farms or to places where they make their living. And practically, we must be involved. We cannot sit in Abuja and be talking about poverty alleviation in our rural villages. We are talking about the farmers and local people in Sokoto, in Maiduguri, in Port Harcourt, in Enugu, in Ondo and other parts of Nigeria. These are the people who suffer what we call poverty and they are our target. The situation in Nigeria today is such that we don’t even have what we call the middle class. That does not exist, so we want to bridge this wide gap. In this case, we must strive to get our people their basic needs such as shelter, food and housing. But beyond that, who says rural people cannot ride good cars? Who says they cannot have access to telephone, take three square meal? This does not mean they are going to be millionaires but to create a middle class. The incessant incursion of the military into our body polity has eroded the middle class. We, however, thank the Almighty God that era is gone. This is our own government and it has to be protected by the people because it is the peoples’ government and I sincerely believe that all hands must be on deck to protect this nascent democracy so that we can say good-bye to poverty in Nigeria. This is a country that has the second largest deposit of bitumen in the world, yet we still import it. We are one of the largest producers of oil in the world, yet we still queue for fuel. Were it not for the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, what would we be saying now? But today, we are laying a solid foundation towards arresting all these problems as the President has said in his millennium broadcast to the nation on January 1. We sincerely hope and believe that in the next few months, this mystery called poverty, induced by the terrible years of military rule, will be wiped away. We certainly cannot be suffering amidst plenty. The Niger Delta Development Commission is another avenue through which we intend to fight poverty in that area. The NDDC is a baby of this administration. So you can see the difference between the military’s despotic rule and democracy. The National Assembly has been accused of deliberately refusing to work on the 2000 Appropriation Bill. What is truly the position of this? Personally, I want to believe that the National Assembly has not frustrated any effort of this administration. Rather, I see us (legislators) as partners in progress moving this country forward. It is rather unfortunate that people are having this perception. But it can be explained that our people, for a very long time, have not been used to the legislative arm of governance. This, of course is as a result of the long years of military bastardisation of our body polity. During military rule, the executive and the judiciary were usually intact but we never had the legislative arm. So Nigerians for a very long time, were never used to having this arm of government. They are perhaps ignorant of what that arm of government should look like and what its operations are. It is pertinent to know that in any democratic setting worldwide, the roles and functions of the legislative arm are clearly specified. In this process, there are no decrees. Issues are debated and argued. So if the president presents any bill to the House, it must be thoroughly debated. We are working for the interest of the Nigerian people in collaboration with the executive arm of the government. So in that sense, for us to pass a budget through, it must pass through three readings. After the second reading, it goes to the debate stage. After this, it goes to the committee stage before it can be unanimously passed into law. So Nigerians should understand that the National Assembly is not just sitting on the 2000 Appropriation Bill. By the time we resume sitting, we shall work on the Bill and give Nigerians their budget. People were used to decrees. In the past, the military head of state could wake up and announce budget at anytime. But Nigerians should know now that the situation has changed. We, who have been elected to represent them, must look critically at what affects them, particularly issues like the budget. We are no more in the era of decrees and proclamations.

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