World Poverty Day or International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed annually on October 17 with the aim of heightening the sense of urgency for wiping out all forms of nail-biting, grinding poverty in every nook and cranny of the planet. The theme of this year is ‘Building forward together: Ending persistent poverty, respecting all people and our planet’.
Gender economic inequality is indeed the leading factor aggravating life on the breadline in every breadth and length of our country, particularly in the North where young women are asphyxiated by a pattern of educational marginalisation. Millions of women were trapped by extreme poverty as Boko Haram’s coldblooded invasions and bandits’ bloodbath pushed them into a pathetic state of widowhood by decimating their spouses who were catering for their daily basic necessities.
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The three tiers of government and the two legislative bodies should spare no effort to pay due attention to these woebegone, poverty-stricken widows so as to cater for their pessimistic out-of-school children to save their bacons from rebirthing other extremist groups in the future.
President Buhari should be commended on his vast array of social intervention schemes, more especially the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) designed to alleviate abject poverty of Nigerians.
Nigeria’s spotless democracy is currently looking forward to seeing special programmes designed for persons with disabilities under the FG’s CCT scheme aimed to alleviate their extreme poverty.
Also in line are children of People With Disabilities to have access to free and quality education from primary to high education levels in order not to be lost in the world of crimes and a quandary in their later life.
Our society could not be liberated from the current trap of the striking multidimensional poverty unless our three tiers of government leave no stone unturned towards investing in girls’ education, empowering stranded women, educating couples about birth spacing, reviving 900 dams and supporting our unemployed graduates and non-graduates to embrace dry-season commercial farming.
Mustapha Baba Azare wrote from Bauchi
