President Goodluck Jonathan, on Thursday, faulted the World Bank report which placed Nigeria among the five poorest countries in the world, saying “the nation is not poor.’’
Addressing workers at the May Day rally held at the Eagle Square, Abuja, the President said “the challenge of the country is not poverty, but redistribution of wealth.’’
He said that the realities on ground did not portray the country as a poor nation, but a nation which abundant wealth needed to be evenly redistributed.
The President added that his administration was working assiduously and putting policies in place to ensure that Nigerians had access to financial resources to create wealth for themselves.
“Nigeria is not a poor country. Nigerians are the most travelled people. There is no country you go that you will not see Nigerians. The GDP of Nigeria is over half a trillion dollars and the economy is growing at close to 7 per cent.’’
“Aliko Dangote was recently classified among the 25 richest people in the World.
“I visited Kenya recently on a state visit and there was a programme for Nigerian and Kenyan business men to interact and the number of private jets that landed in Nairobi that day was a subject of discussion in Kenyan media for over a week.
“If you talk about ownership of private jets, Nigeria will be among the first 10 countries, yet they are saying that Nigeria is among the five poorest countries.
“Some of you will experience that there is an amount of money you will give to a Nigerian who needs help and will not even regard it and thank you but if you travel to other countries and give such an amount, the person will celebrate.
“But the World Bank statistics shows that Nigeria is among the five poorest countries. Our problem is not poverty, our problem is redistribution of wealth"...
Source: Daily Independent Nigeria
If our problem is not poverty and its wealth redistribution, what are the efforts that have been put in place to redistribute the wealth?
Certainly not these policies that we see. These policies that makes a minimum wage N18,000 that is sometimes not even paid and makes a delegate to the national conference go home with N4million a month, on top of it, he's fed and this is in 2014 and we've had this government for six years. So if we say our problem is not poverty, I won't even bother to comment much on this.
Again, if it is wealth redistribution, what has been done on how to redistribute the wealth?
We have people at the national assembly we don't even know how much they earn. That happens to be the most guarded secret. Same with the Public officers.
I remember that time Atiku was saying strongly that they should cut public officers' pay.
My conviction is this, either you bring down all these top wages or you hike up the lower ones. But when you hike up the lower ones, you hike up inflation.
There's need to take a critical look at what our political and office holders earn.
To me poverty and wealth redistribution is still the same. What it both point at is that, some people are further down the poverty line than those "up there".
Put politicians on minimum wage, and see how things will change for this country...
