THE VERY RICH AND THE VERY POOR
The authorities should strive for a system that works for all
The 2024 report from the UK-based charity Oxfam, ‘Inequality Inc’ which documents enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people both on the global stage and across countries should task the authorities, especially at a time like this. Despite abundant human and material resources, millions of Nigerians are living in hunger while a few individuals in both the private and public sectors live in obscene opulence. To build a new political and economic system that works for everyone and not just the fortunate few, things must change.
Inequality in the distribution of opportunities is not peculiar to Nigeria and Oxfam confirms that. According to the report, Africa’s seven richest men own more wealth ($52 billion) than the 700 million people who make up the poorest half of the continent’s population. ‘‘Our rigged economies are benefiting the super-rich while governments are struggling to provide crucial public services like healthcare and education to Africans across the continent,” Oxfam’s Africa Director, Fati N’zi-Hassane said. But the situation in our country is becoming very desperate for the majority of our people despite the denial by people in government.
In Nigeria today, many basic services such as education, health and infrastructure are decrepit or in short supply, while a huge demographic crisis is looming. The consequences of this situation are not only for the victims but also those who feed fat at the expense of the poor in both the public and private sectors. That the situation keeps worsening every year is why critical stakeholders should be concerned. ‘‘The bedrock of poverty is not in the lack of resources, but in the fact that the top one per cent has hijacked the available resources,” according to N’zi-Hassane.
We enjoin President Bola Tinubu to pay special attention to income distribution in Nigeria. It is good to come up with economic reform programmes but these ideas should not be to further pauperise those already going through hard times. With the plight of the under-privileged steadily worsening and many going to bed with less than a survival diet, the challenge is for all critical stakeholders, including in the private sector. Indeed, the more worrisome aspect of the Nigerian condition is that poverty goes beyond the shortage of food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine the quality of life. It is inclusive of educational attainment and gender inequality, for example.
Going by the Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index, which ranks governments based on what they are doing to tackle this gap, Nigeria fares badly because its social spending (on health, education and social protection) is abysmally low. By diverting scarce resources to private hands at the expense of much needed projects such as schools, hospitals, roads and reliable institutions, poverty and inequality are being reinforced. Millions are jobless while many of the employed are not paid living wages and therefore hardly leaving any room for savings. Others get their daily living from the streets. But the main problem has been in the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
The problems of unemployment, poverty, inequality, decayed infrastructure, insecurity, and serious challenges in social services like education and health, etc., are already very telling. The solution cannot be found in some tokenistic ‘palliatives’ that are neither well thought-out nor enduring. The challenge of the moment is for the government, at all levels, to begin to deliver targeted and result-oriented policies that would ensure not only that our potentialities are maximised but also that the resultant prosperity is shared. To bridge the gap between the few rich and the many poor in our country, we must make the economic system to work for everyone.
