The federal government has condemned State governors who give undue priority to construction of flyovers and airports at the expenses of improving the living conditions of people in rural areas.
Briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, stated that 72 percent of the poverty in Nigeria is found in the rural areas, which he said had been abandoned by governors.
He pointed out that while states were in charge of land for agriculture, they do not invest in them for the desired effect on their rural citizens.
He, therefore, advised the governors that rather than concentrate attention on building infrastructure that are not necessary nor impact the common man, they should focus on initiatives that can pull the majority of the people out of poverty.
The minister said: “Question was, what is the Minister of Finance and I doing with regards to hardship in Nigeria, right? So the suggestion is that both of us are the ones creating the hardship and it has to take two of us to resolve it.
“In the first place, I just returned this morning from Brussels where 106 countries, 27 countries from Europe and 79 countries from the organisation of African Caribbean and Pacific countries. What was the deliberation on? Basically on how should the world over tends to do around food and energy and energy crisis.
“I think that it’s always good for us to put things in the right perspective. Like I say to people, when you say government, we should be able to specify which government we are talking about. Is it a federal government? Is it a state government or is it a local government? Because we all have different responsibilities. And it is for this reason that we last year started some work on the multi-dimensional poverty index, for which we recently released the report and it was launched by Mr. President”.
