Lacking in the midst of plenty
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- Category: Philosofaith
- Written by M. U. Ndagi
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Speaking recently at the 5th Annual Microfinance Conference and Entrepreneurship Awards in Abuja, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, revealed that about 70% of Nigerians are very poor because they are currently living below poverty line.
This shows an increase of 16 percent over the previous poverty ration of 54 percent. It is estimated that 12 million out of the 150 million Nigerians, which is the current population figure of the country from the National Population Commission (NPC), are unemployed. Available statistics also show that 49.9 percent of youth within the age 15 and 24 years who reside in the urban areas have no job while 39.6 percent of their counterparts in rural areas are also unemployed.These poverty and unemployment figures which are quite disturbing were supposedly given by His Excellency, the CBN Governor, to educate Nigerians particularly leaders (executive and legislative) about how more than two-third of the country’s population remain very poor with limited access to basic necessities of life including clean water and shelter. Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi also showcased how 46.3 percent of Nigerians are excluded from participation in financial services, which according to him, “causes serious challenges to national economic growth and development”.
Were it not that Malam Sanusi through his demonstrated integrity and sense of probity courageously showed senators where they belong during his encounter with them, which incident ensued from his pronouncement that 25.1% of the nation’s annual budget is consumed by “fat-cat salaries” of federal legislators; the latter would have yet considered the poverty and unemployment figures recently declared by the CBN Governor as another “bolt from the blue”. We encourage Malam Sanusi to, in his capacity as the CBN Governor and as required by the duties of the office, continue to unveil statistical figures and data that though may have hitherto been concealed from the knowledge of Nigerians but which information is relevant for the healthy economic growth and development of our nation. It is only in a corrupt political system such as obtains in Nigeria that leaders as executives or legislators would want to blackmail a public officer for speaking the truth as statutorily required by his schedule of responsibilities, and to which he swore with a Holy Book. Well, we are grateful to Allah (SWT) who through Malam Sanusi’s uncommon moral principles and sense of incorruptibility made the senators for the first time to find their match in the CBN Governor. For every pharaoh, Allah (SWT) has sent a Moses, and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is indeed the “Moses” of Nigerian “Pharaohs”.
It is most unfortunate that despite great and abundant natural wealth, many Nigerians remain poor. Majority of the poor in Nigeria reside in rural areas; and they cut across youth, women and elderly people. In their miserable and limited economic power and inspite of the much publicized “empowerment” programmes, Nigerians lack access to adequate primary healthcare and clean water. The gate to quality education remains closed to children, leaving the greater percentage of youth without jobs. Yet, our political leaders would always and shamelessly declare that the last one decade of civil rule in Nigeria is full of “dividends of democracy”. Their definition of such dividends, perhaps, includes bad roads, collapsed education system, and a dead power sector.
Indeed, Nigerians have no reason to be as poor as they are; if their leaders had availed them with good governance. Successive administrations in Nigeria instead of focusing on delivering essential public services assumed control of major sources of national income. In the process, corruption took over the entire system in both the public and private sectors of our economy; and consequently gained a strong foothold in the society. It is corruption expressed through wicked leadership and betrayal of political mandate in Nigeria that resulted in the deflation of an excess crude account that stood at $20 billion in January 2009 to $460 million in July 2010 with virtually no positive impact on the lives and living conditions of Nigerians. In February 2009, $4 billion was shared; in April 2009 $5.3 billion was withdrawn for the power sector emergency fund; between June and August 2009, $4 billion was shared; in September 2009, $2 billion was again shared in the hit of global economic stimulus. This particular withdrawal was at the instance of state governors who said they were not going to throw their weight behind the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan who at that time needed the powers of an Acting President, unless he approved withdrawals from the account to enable them settle contractors they owed. But who were the contractors other than the governors themselves? $3 billion and $2 billion were respectively withdrawn in March and July 2010. This is how seventy percent of Nigerians were impoverished through the misappropriation of the excess crude account by their leaders at the federal, state and local tiers of government.
We consider it relevant in this discourse to, in the light of unwarrantable poverty and joblessness in the country, comment on Zakat Commissions established by shariah-compliant (really compliant?) states of Nigeria. As the name implies, Zakat Commissions where hypocrisy and dishonesty have no bastardized the faith of those in positions of authority, are institutions which supposedly should provide succor to the less-privileged class of the society as listed in Qur’an 9:60: “Alms are for the poor and the needy, and those employed to administer (the funds); for those whose hearts have been (recently) reconciled (to Truth); for the wayfarer. (Thus is it) ordained by God, and Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom”. However, the greater percentage of destitution in the country prevails in a region where nearly all the states claim to be implementing shariah with Zakat Commissions as basic institutions of the system. One cannot agree more with those who described such as “political shariah” because of the motives that underscored its implementation from the outset.
If implementers of shariah in the concerned states were sincere, they would have, in the attempt to reduce poverty, made laws against the needless but expensive nature of wedding ceremonies in recent times. A colleague told me last year that in a country where many live below the poverty line, souvenirs distributed to selected guests at a wedding that took place in one of the northern states of Nigeria included a classic handbag that contained a gold-plated Rolex wrist watch, a blackberry handset, and a silver-coated ink pen. For Allah’s sake, what’s all this madness about wedding souvenirs? A law against this craziness can reduce the alarming rate of endemic wretchedness among Nigerians who live in the midst of those who have plenty money. This explains why this column opined in a previous write-up when a state made a law to regulate wedding expenditures by pegging bride-price that the solution to it is not in pegging dowries but in regulating superfluous marriage expenses. May Allah (SWT) guide our leaders with the right sense of responsibility required to reduce poverty and unemployment in the country, amin.
Articles
Lacking in the midst of plenty
Category: Philosofaith Written by M. U. Ndagi Hits: 706
Speaking recently at the 5th Annual Microfinance Conference and Entrepreneurship Awards in Abuja, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, revealed that about 70% of Nigerians are very poor because they are currently living below poverty line.
This shows an increase of 16 percent over the previous poverty ration of 54 percent. It is estimated that 12 million out of the 150 million Nigerians, which is the current population figure of the country from the National Population Commission (NPC), are unemployed. Available statistics also show that 49.9 percent of youth within the age 15 and 24 years who reside in the urban areas have no job while 39.6 percent of their counterparts in rural areas are also unemployed.These poverty and unemployment figures which are quite disturbing were supposedly given by His Excellency, the CBN Governor, to educate Nigerians particularly leaders (executive and legislative) about how more than two-third of the country’s population remain very poor with limited access to basic necessities of life including clean water and shelter. Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi also showcased how 46.3 percent of Nigerians are excluded from participation in financial services, which according to him, “causes serious challenges to national economic growth and development”.
Were it not that Malam Sanusi through his demonstrated integrity and sense of probity courageously showed senators where they belong during his encounter with them, which incident ensued from his pronouncement that 25.1% of the nation’s annual budget is consumed by “fat-cat salaries” of federal legislators; the latter would have yet considered the poverty and unemployment figures recently declared by the CBN Governor as another “bolt from the blue”. We encourage Malam Sanusi to, in his capacity as the CBN Governor and as required by the duties of the office, continue to unveil statistical figures and data that though may have hitherto been concealed from the knowledge of Nigerians but which information is relevant for the healthy economic growth and development of our nation. It is only in a corrupt political system such as obtains in Nigeria that leaders as executives or legislators would want to blackmail a public officer for speaking the truth as statutorily required by his schedule of responsibilities, and to which he swore with a Holy Book. Well, we are grateful to Allah (SWT) who through Malam Sanusi’s uncommon moral principles and sense of incorruptibility made the senators for the first time to find their match in the CBN Governor. For every pharaoh, Allah (SWT) has sent a Moses, and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is indeed the “Moses” of Nigerian “Pharaohs”.
It is most unfortunate that despite great and abundant natural wealth, many Nigerians remain poor. Majority of the poor in Nigeria reside in rural areas; and they cut across youth, women and elderly people. In their miserable and limited economic power and inspite of the much publicized “empowerment” programmes, Nigerians lack access to adequate primary healthcare and clean water. The gate to quality education remains closed to children, leaving the greater percentage of youth without jobs. Yet, our political leaders would always and shamelessly declare that the last one decade of civil rule in Nigeria is full of “dividends of democracy”. Their definition of such dividends, perhaps, includes bad roads, collapsed education system, and a dead power sector.
Indeed, Nigerians have no reason to be as poor as they are; if their leaders had availed them with good governance. Successive administrations in Nigeria instead of focusing on delivering essential public services assumed control of major sources of national income. In the process, corruption took over the entire system in both the public and private sectors of our economy; and consequently gained a strong foothold in the society. It is corruption expressed through wicked leadership and betrayal of political mandate in Nigeria that resulted in the deflation of an excess crude account that stood at $20 billion in January 2009 to $460 million in July 2010 with virtually no positive impact on the lives and living conditions of Nigerians. In February 2009, $4 billion was shared; in April 2009 $5.3 billion was withdrawn for the power sector emergency fund; between June and August 2009, $4 billion was shared; in September 2009, $2 billion was again shared in the hit of global economic stimulus. This particular withdrawal was at the instance of state governors who said they were not going to throw their weight behind the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan who at that time needed the powers of an Acting President, unless he approved withdrawals from the account to enable them settle contractors they owed. But who were the contractors other than the governors themselves? $3 billion and $2 billion were respectively withdrawn in March and July 2010. This is how seventy percent of Nigerians were impoverished through the misappropriation of the excess crude account by their leaders at the federal, state and local tiers of government.
We consider it relevant in this discourse to, in the light of unwarrantable poverty and joblessness in the country, comment on Zakat Commissions established by shariah-compliant (really compliant?) states of Nigeria. As the name implies, Zakat Commissions where hypocrisy and dishonesty have no bastardized the faith of those in positions of authority, are institutions which supposedly should provide succor to the less-privileged class of the society as listed in Qur’an 9:60: “Alms are for the poor and the needy, and those employed to administer (the funds); for those whose hearts have been (recently) reconciled (to Truth); for the wayfarer. (Thus is it) ordained by God, and Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom”. However, the greater percentage of destitution in the country prevails in a region where nearly all the states claim to be implementing shariah with Zakat Commissions as basic institutions of the system. One cannot agree more with those who described such as “political shariah” because of the motives that underscored its implementation from the outset.
If implementers of shariah in the concerned states were sincere, they would have, in the attempt to reduce poverty, made laws against the needless but expensive nature of wedding ceremonies in recent times. A colleague told me last year that in a country where many live below the poverty line, souvenirs distributed to selected guests at a wedding that took place in one of the northern states of Nigeria included a classic handbag that contained a gold-plated Rolex wrist watch, a blackberry handset, and a silver-coated ink pen. For Allah’s sake, what’s all this madness about wedding souvenirs? A law against this craziness can reduce the alarming rate of endemic wretchedness among Nigerians who live in the midst of those who have plenty money. This explains why this column opined in a previous write-up when a state made a law to regulate wedding expenditures by pegging bride-price that the solution to it is not in pegging dowries but in regulating superfluous marriage expenses. May Allah (SWT) guide our leaders with the right sense of responsibility required to reduce poverty and unemployment in the country, amin.