Neither Buhari nor Tinubu was responsible for multidimensional poverty in Nigeria – Prince Clem Agba [+video]

Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, the immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning in the Buhari administration, has reiterated the validity of the multidimensional poverty survey that he commissioned while in office, which put the population figure of multidimensionally poor Nigerians at 133 million.

Agba who spoke at a honorary national steering committee meeting and dinner with the Open Government Partnership global support unit on July 31, 2025 at Transcorp Hiton in Abuja said that neither the Buhari administration nor the successor administration of President Bola Tinubu was responsible for that outcome.

He said that the subnational governments were responsible for the multidimensional poverty that plagued 133 million Nigerians.

According to him, “I released the survey information that multidimensionally 133 million Nigerians are poor and that has been misrepresented and a lot if the journalist who are here were in forums where I had spoken about this.

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“Financially, 69.5 million Nigerians are poor, living below the two-dollar-a-day premise, but multidimensionally, 133 million Nigerians are poor. The question now is, who is responsible for this? Is it the Federal Government of Nigeria, the state or local governments?

“The truth from what the survey showed is that the federal government had nothing to do with multidimensional poverty, and I have read a lot of people on this, saying that Buhari had increased the number of poor people in Nigeria or President Bola Tinubu has done so.

“It has nothing to do with the Federal government whatsoever What is multidimensional poverty? Multidimensional poverty addresses is lack of access to some basic things such as basic education, basic health, potable drinking water and sanitation.

“Who, in our constitution, is responsible for these things I have spoken about? Who is responsible for basic education? It is subnational government. Whonus responsible for basic health? It is subnational government. Who is responsible for providing potable drinking water? It is subnational government. Who is responsible for sanitation? Subnational government. So, why are we blaming the federal government of Nigeria

“We need to hold those who are to provide these amenities responsible because it is not enough to say government did not provide this or government did not provide that. Which government? We run a Federation and there are three tiers – the federal government, the state government and then the local government.

“And, why do we say there is lack of access to all of these basic amenities? This is because, as I have always said, our governors, when they need the office, they remember thir entire states. They would go round and campaign, but once they win,they put 80 per cent or so of the resources in the state capitals.

“I am glad that President Tinubu had been speaking about this in the last two weeks. We forget the communities; we forget the local government. Rsthercthan state governments or local governments to build primary health care centre, they concentrate on tertiary Healthcare. That is nit their responsibility.

“If you have all the money in the world and you go to your community and you fall ill at night about 11 o’clock and you need to go to the hospital and there is no one available, you are multidimensionally poor even if you have $10m in your pocket.

“If you decided to relocate to your local community with your family and you need your children to go school and they have to go ten kilometres to 20 kilometres to get to a school, you are multidimensionally poor.

“I see a lot of people gathering together now to say that federal government has not done this and that and it has created 133 million people to be poor and therefore, they want to change the government… Personally, I believe that the government is on the right track in the policies that had been pronounced and the government is carrying out.

“We produced a National Development Plan – with perspective and medium term, the 30-year plan and the five-year plan, and all of these were contained in it. We had 1,650 Nigerians , both living in Nigeria and in the Diaspora, work on this and we all agreed fuel subsidy should go because it was eating up the country. It has been implemented.

“When you get really sick, when you have a cancer, what do you do? Do you just manage the pain or do you cut it off? You cut it off, right? And, once you do that, there must be pains. You endure the pains for a while and thereafter, things begin to manifest, you begin to see the goodness in cutting off that cancer.”