President Muhammadu Buhari restated his administration’s goal to lift 100 Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
He said this during the inauguration of the National Steering Committee (NSC) of the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Buhari cited India’s poverty alleviation programme, noting that Nigeria can also do as India did, lifting 271 million out of poverty within a 10-year period, the same timeline the current administration has set for its poverty alleviation scheme.
The president expressed optimism on the strategy that has been designed to address the issue of poverty in Nigeria, describing it as an “inclusive poverty strategy” that took into account previous errors.
He said, “This journey began in January 2021 when I directed the Chairman of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to collaboratively work together to articulate what that will lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
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“I am happy to note that the process of designing this inclusive poverty reduction strategy recognised and addressed past mistakes as well as laid the foundation for a sustainable poverty reduction.
“This would be done through wide range consultations held at all levels of government, development partners, the private sector as well as the civil society.
“The major challenge before this National Steering Committee is to translate our good intentions into positive impact of for the average Nigerian so that we create an appreciative impact on the poverty situation in our country.
“If India can lift 271million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, Nigeria can surely lift 100 million people out of poverty in 10 years.
“Fortunately, we have already started, but we need to unlock the challenges of slow implementation, inappropriate targeting and absence of adequate resources.”
Buhari further noted that the country’s economic resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that “we can achieve our goal “but we need to seriously scale up and work more with states and local governments.
“This call becomes more pertinent in the face of recent forecasts by the IMF, the World Bank and our own Nigerian Economic Summit Group which all agreed that Nigeria needs to frontally tackle her poverty situation if our economic gains are to be sustained.”
