JODEL BLAMES FG FOR POVERTY IN NIGERIA
JOURNALISTS for Niger Delta (JODEL), a media group concerned with the affairs of Nigeria’s oil and gas region, has blamed the persistence of extreme poverty in the Niger Delta, and other regions of the country on what they described as “the neo-liberal policies” of the Federal Government.
The media group also hit at the multinational oil and gas corporations operating in the Niger Delta, claiming that their grabbing of natural resources, such a water and land helped to worsen the poverty situation in the region.
JODEL Co-ordinator, Akanimo Sampson, claimed in a statement in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, that the Nigerian state and the multinational corporations have continued to appropriate the lion’s share of the benefits of the country’s natural resources, leaving the resource-endowed regions with pollution and deterioration of the environment.
“As a result of the neo-liberal policies of the Nigeria government, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown spectacularly since 1999. The Nigerian people now live in a world where more than half of the world’s population is poor and one-sixth, close to one billion people, very poor”, JODEL said.
Continuing, the group added, “this is a world in which 24,000 people die daily of hunger and poverty-related diseases. In the Niger Delta area, 90 per cent of the indigenous people are poor, and more than 60 per cent, very poor.”
According to the group, “one of the most striking aspects of the neo-liberal reform policies is that, not only the rich are getting richer, but the very corrupt rich, the billionaires and the multi-millionaires, are the fastest-growing sub-group. Shockingly, this worrisome development is accepted as normal”.
“We are of the view that the aspiration of the south-south geo-political zone for the 2007 presidency should begin with a redefinition of development that is people –oriented. And so, the real issue is the oil region, is how to replace the dug-out canoes with small motorised boats.
“Many people in the Niger Delta do not even have boats. For the poor, they have dug-out canoes which they made themselves, while the very poor own nothing. Real development in the Niger Delta therefore requires a significant transfer of the resources from the Nigerian state-oil corporations alliance, to the poor. A situation where the oil companies and the international banks go on making billions while the poor and the very poor of Nigeria have a dollar or two per day is no longer acceptable to JODEL as a pro-people organisation”.
“Beginning from 2007”, the group went on, “we would like to see our country define “progress” more from the standpoint of popular participation. This should take place at all levels of socio-economic and political life. The citizenry should participate in micro and macro-economic decisions, in ecological sustainability as well as protection of natural resources, human rights, food security, equity, cultural and biological diversity.”
“For us in JODEL, we see progress as an increase of the well-being of families, and communities in the rural and urban areas. Popular participation is therefore, the most important principle at achieving tangible progress”, they said. ENDS.
