By Charles Abah
No fewer than 27. 4 million Nigerians are living in poverty, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has declared.
These Nigerians, SERAP added, earned less than N100, 000 per annum.
The rights group, which made this known in a report on Thursday, also revealed that corruption was plunging Nigerians into deeper poverty.
The 61-page report titled, “The Ignored Pandemic: How Corruption in the Health, Education and Water Sectors is Plunging Nigerians further into Poverty”, was presented on behalf of SERAP by the Senior Research Fellow at the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria, Dr Elijah Okebukola, in Lagos.
Parts of the report read, “48.90 per cent of people living in poverty, that is, more than 27,453,154 (twenty-seven million, four hundred and fifty-three thousand, one hundred and fifty-four) earned less than N100,000 per annum. 27.9 per cent, that is more than 15,663,456 (fifteen million, six hundred and sixty-three thousand, four hundred and fifty-six) earned between N100,000 and N200,000 per annum.
“10.70 per cent earned between N201,000 and N300,000 per annum. 12.50 per cent earned more than N300,000 per annum. Sixty-five per cent of people living in poor neighbourhoods stayed in either one-bedroom or two-bedroom accommodation. Up to four per cent of people living in poverty, that is, about 2,245,657 (two million, two hundred and forty-five thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven) had physical disabilities.”
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SERAP, which disclosed further in a statement signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, added that budget fraud and other illegal actions were responsible for the failure of service delivery to Nigerians.
The report added, “Budget fraud, procurement fraud, embezzlement of funds among other illegal actions, lead to failure in the delivery of services including education, water and health. People living in poor neighbourhoods have suffered so much that they consider poor service delivery as being good enough.
“Corruption contributes to poverty and consequential suffering of people living in poor neighbourhoods. 57.30 per cent of people living in poor neighbourhoods were youth of between 18 and 35 years old. Poor people are victims and not perpetrators of corruption in the health, education and water sectors.
“Many of the 36 states in the country have no documented policies for helping people living in poverty or people earning low income to have access to health, education and water. Even if these policies existed, they were not known to the public officers who serve the people living in poor neighbourhoods.”
Against this backdrop, the rights group urged President Muhammadu Buhari to propose a bill for the amendment of the constitution so as to accommodate the citizens’ socio-economic rights.
It also tasked the Buhari administration to “ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which allows individuals and groups whose socio-economic rights are violated to access international accountability mechanism in the form of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
