Foremost political economist and founder, Center for Values and Leadership, Prof Pat Utomi, has said the country’s elitist approach to governance remained a major reason for the rising poverty figure Commenting on the recent poverty statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Utomi said the focus of the elites is the capture of the state, saying all the tools that ought to be deployed to fight poverty have been relegated to the background.
Utomi said the inability of government to have a robust productive economy has left many Nigerians jobless because the industries to employ them have all gone comatose, thus worsening the country’s poverty index. He maintained that when people work and earn a decent wage, they are able to fight their way out of the poverty.
On the other hand, he added that the companies and industries that are meant to employ a larger number of the citizens have been hugely taxed out of production. The economist expressed worry that the obsession of government to continue to hold on to the dictates of the World Bank that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Production to tax ratio is low further contributes to poverty.
He argued that the obsession of government to pay bills for spending that is inappropriate which included buying SUVs for public officials, flying Presidential jets all over the world further hurts the production side of the economy because all that comes to the mind of the economy managers at that point is the low GDP to tax ratio which they would want to continue to increase to justify their lavish lifestyle.
“We must return to our domestic season of agriculture to pull people out of poverty. Charity they say begins at home. The much touted foreign investment will continue to elude the country if we don’t develop our local economy. Not until we take steps to begin to develop the local economy will those investments come,” he advised.