A coalition of seventeen civil society organisations, CSOs, has called on the Nigerian Government to roll out a comprehensive social protection programme that will truly capture the poor and vulnerable in the society, to get people out of poverty.
The CSOs made the call in a communique issued at the end of a meeting on Petrol Subsidy Removal and Palliatives, in Abuja.
The organisations expressed deep concerns over government’s initiatives to urgently cushion the harsh economic and social effect of the subsidy removal policy on the citizens.
“Strategic communication of every process and stage of the implementation of the social protection policy is critical for success, especially in a country where corruption is endemic and the trust in government is at a low ebb,” the communique’ said.
They recommended that, government at federal, state and local levels should increase investments in basic education, and primary healthcare for poor Nigerians to create increased access to social services.
While lamenting that the current national minimum wage of N30,000 remains highly unsustainable considering the current economic condition, they recommended that a process for increasing the minimum wage should commence immediately at the federal, state, and local levels and by private sector employers as the current minimum wage no longer reflect the new realities.
They noted that government’s removal of subsidy pushed up prices of goods and services, like food stuff, transportation costs, agricultural tools, and inputs, rent and other services, yet salaries were not increased, necessitating untold hardship, and suffering amongst the citizens.
“Poverty rate has increased steadily over the years in Nigeria and has degenerated to the point of ranking third in the world in 2014, to the first position in 2018 with around 87 million people and a further slide to 133million of its citizens living in multi-dimensional poverty in 2022 (National Bureau of Statistics)
“McKinsey Global Report, 2018 reports that because of social protection policies implementation combined with enlightened leadership and pressure from below, China and India lifted 713 million and 170 million people respectively out of poverty between 1990 and 2013.
“While social protection has been acknowledged across the world as a veritable way to reduce poverty, there are issues with its implementation in Nigeria judging from experience.
“The method of compiling the social register raises credibility concerns as the processes are not known to most citizens and those on the register are not also known,” the CSOs said.
The CSOs also recommended that the current administration adopt a comprehensive development agenda for the country as a piece-meal approach to dealing with recurrent challenges faced by previous administrations will not help in the long run.
The communique was signed by David Ugolor of ANEEJ; Abiola Akiode of WARDC; Monday Osasah of Centre LSD; Ene Ede of Equity Advocate; Funmi Akinyele of Food Basket Nigeria; Rommy of Lawyers Alert; Otive Igbuzor of Centre LSD; Nelson Nwafor of FENRAD; Tijani Abdulkareem of SERDEC and David Anyaele of CCD.
Others were Y. Z. Ya’U of CITAD; Udy Okon of YAF; Emem Okon of KEBETKACHE; Faith Nwadishi of CTA; Egedegbe Edewor of VREI; Idris Miliki of CHRCH and Obialunanma Nnaobi-Ayodele of Meluibe Foundation.
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