Immediate-past Minister of State fo Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, has pointed the finger at state governors for the year 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, which classified 133 million Nigerians as multidimensionally poor.
Agba said the state governments of Nigeria were more responsible for the deprivations suffered by the vast majority of Nigerians who were burdened by multidimensional poverty.
The former minister, who is economist, administrator, procurement and supply chain management expert, also praised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for bracing the odds of the removal of fuel subsidy, which he said ought to have been withdrawn about thirty years ago in order to set the country on a realistic footing, as a springboard to socio-economic recovery and stability.
Prince Agba made the statement during a courtesy call on him by the Forum for African Renaissance and Reggae Revival (FA-R3), to give him a musical and video album, produced by Comrade Tony Erha, President of FA-R3.
Prince Agba, who is a holder of the Commander of the Order of Niger (CON) national honour, who was severally honoured for his unprecedented management of ministry while in the saddle, in the country’s history, asserted that the 2022 MPI report indicated that the sum accrued to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, which they usually expended on projects that had no bearing with the populace, was in surplus of what was received by the Federal Government (FGN).
He said the Federal Government was still wrongly accused as the main cause of poverty and economic hardships.
Talking about the planned anti-hunger protests in the country by civil society groups, he observed that Nigeria could not be severed from the rest countries of the world that currently experience the same blights.
Saying that he wonders what purposes the protest actions were going to serve, other than time and resource wastage, he urged the organizers, government and the private sector to follow the line of public interest and come together to resolve the economic hardships.
“Nigeria could afford to produce what it needs and buy what its produces” in order to reduce over-dependent on foreign goods and services, in order to maintain balance of trade. Ll He asserted
Whilst presenting the music/video, with ‘Wahala’ as title of the lead-song, to Agba, who is a Grand Patron to the group, Erha thanked him for his immense support for the group’s activities, and corroborated his earlier position that the music/video album calls on all and sundry, and above all the Almighty God, to help fight the ineptitudes and poverty that pervade African continent.
The 2022 MPI study, a tangible blueprint for social and economic recovery, which was independently conducted by the FGN Bureau of Statistics, with its states and FCT counterparts, the United Nations and some other global institutions, under Agba as a minister, showed that about 133 million Nigerians are acutely poor.
The report was categorized along three dimensional areas of monetary, educational and basic infrastructure services.
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