La intertextualidad en fragmentos de las obras

The cost of living and poverty in Nigeria could best be described as falling from grace to grass and from boom to doom. The General Gowon‟s administration experienced the period of oil boom which enhanced great improvement in the living condition of the people. But this was short-lived. At a point in the life of the nation, the economy started showing negative signs and poverty started intensifying. The government really responded by making frantic efforts to curb the poverty menace but it continued unabated.

As the threat of poverty became so severe, Nigeria president (OlusegunObasanjo) in September 2000, met with other 188 world leaders for United Nations Millennium Summit. And in view of the fact that poverty has become a global phenomenon and serious threat to the peace and security of the world, the millennium summit came to adopt the millennium declaration which was a commitment by the leaders to reduce extreme poverty by half by 2015. The world leaders also pledged to eliminate gender inequality, environmental degradation and HIV/AIDS, to improve access to water, as well as to forge global partnership for development. These specific objectives which are set to be accomplished within l5 years‟ time (2015) are known and referred to as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

So, back home, the Nigeria Government obviously as the first step to achieving the MDGs and also in response to the obstacles to the initial actions of government on poverty alleviation, the federal government of Nigeria, in January 2001 launched a comprehensive programme for poverty eradication in Nigeria by the year 2010, called the National Poverty Eradication.Programme (NAPEP).

The National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) consists basically in 4 multi-sect oral schemes: Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), Rural Infrastructures Development Scheme (RIDS), Social Welfare Services Schemes (SOWESS), and Natural

Resources Development and Conservation Scheme (NRDCS), which cover all the institutional landscape of poverty consisting of economic empowerment, provision of economic infrastructures as well as social welfare services. The implementation structure is bottom-top approach and has provided for grass root participation. And ultimately, the target is to ensure that all Nigerians are provided with steady service of real income; food;

education; water; housing; power supply; road; health care facilities; good government;

security and conducive environment for productive activities.

The questions now are, how far? How much of the targets have been met? How well has Nigeria performed in the fight against poverty? The National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP) ten-year projection is gone and the Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs) 15-years‟ time line has expired. This calls for stock taking or general evaluation regarding various poverty reduction strategies adopted in Nigeria with the view to modification where necessary in order to achieve the desired objective.

In all honesty, some appreciable progress has been made on many fronts, but there is still much biting of poverty in the land. As Ochekpe, (2007) the co-coordinator, of the Civil Society Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) puts it:

At half time, the score board for Nigeria does not show clear victory by 2015 if we continue at the same pace. We are still a long way from achieving the MDGs unless something drastic is done and in a sustained manner. (p.21).

The truth is that government has not only solidly put machinery in place, but set it in motion for the extermination of poverty. And a cursory look at the NAPEP set it in monitoring and an assessment sheet shows that a lot has been achieved. The various schemes are up and doing with formidable structure and strategies for the monitoring, log books are developed for gathering information or the macro indices in a format, easy recording, digesting, analysis, assessment, tracking and quantification. And in effect,

looking at the activities of NAPEP, it becomes obvious that poverty is not just really fought, but also seen to be fought. People are being empowered through skill acquisition and provision of credit facilities, social welfare services are equally provided including primary health care services. Also some infrastructures and development projects are carried out. Enrolment in schools and higher institutions has been on the increase and there is improvement in women empowerment. The infant mortality rate and HIV/AIDS scourge are being seriously tackled. We can go on and on appraising various poverty reduction or alleviation programmes in Nigeria. But on the whole, poverty alleviation programs/ efforts in Nigeria failed to produce the desired results. There is still poverty everywhere in our country, despite the activities of NAPEP. Osagie (2007) of the flipside column of the Daily Sun once sarcastically described the Nigerian situation thus:

Nigerians were voted the happiest people in the land, majority of our people have more than three square meals a day, while every Nigerian lives in his own home. No one is so poor in Nigeria today that he has no shelter over his family‟s head or lives under the bridge. (p.48).

According to the analysis of Ochekpe (2007), who is deeply involved in the activities of the various civil society groups campaigning against poverty and for the attainment of the MDGs on the platform of Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), Nigeria working group: 54 percent of Nigeria are wallowing in poverty and having to make do with less than $1 per day, a situation being worsened by retrenchment and lay-off. Beside, education is of poor quality, maternal and infant health have become issues of serious concern as 800 out of 100,000 Nigerian women die during child birth.

There is also the problem of rising unemployment, as well as the unabated expansion in the number of urban slums and environmental degradation resulting from poor sanitary and environmental habits. There is near absence of commitment in the purposeful

development by state and local government in the by state and local governments which will address the issues of poverty reduction and general development (Ochekpe, 2007).

Even the official government source is not left out in noting the failure of the poverty eradication efforts in Nigeria. The official publication of the Anambra State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (ASEEDS 2nd edition) reports that:

Despite the number of poverty schemes of government and the extensive ' support of international community in general and United Nations agencies in particular, the poverty situation in Nigeria has become worse since the 90‟s. Moving from a 1992 level of 42.7% to 65.5% of the population in 1996 and over 70% by 2002 (p.27).

Furthermore, the March 15, 2007 edition of the Vanguard bears the front page headline: „Poverty Tops FG‟s list of human rights problems‟. In the report, it was stated that the federal government has picked out poverty, discrimination, conflicts and diseases as the most acute human rights problems in the world today. The then foreign affairs minister, Ogwu (2007), was quoted in that report as stating that preventable diseases and malnutrition kills children in their millions despite the abundance of resources while conflicts that could be prevented, if statesmanship and sober judgments had been applied to situations, are allowed to kindle and rage unabated.

This report points to the fact that the problem of Nigeria is not just that of wealth but of the people. People die of malnutrition and disease in the midst of plenty and people engage themselves in war and destruction when they should not.This is the point portrayed by West (2006) in his essay entitled, „The poverty of wealth‟. The essay actually has a lot to do with evaluating the poverty situation in Nigeria but he realized that poverty in Nigeria is not necessarily the opposite of wealth, but rather an abuse of wealth (by the people themselves). Poverty in Nigeria, according to West (2006):

Is not synonymous with mendicancy or pauperism in ordinary language. It

is a metaphysical state of deficiency, inadequacy or bareness, even in the midst of otherwise conventional sufficiency. It could also be a state of moral psychological or even psychiatric individualism. (p.31).

He went further to declare that: „poverty or deficiency of wealth is perhaps more glaringly manifest in the field of public morality‟.