The House of Representatives said on Monday that the possibility of Nigeria achieving the eight objectives of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015 might be a mirage.
The House expressed fears that only three out of the MDGs had the chances of being realised by Nigeria in the next eight years ”from available reports and data.”
The House Committee on the MDGs stated this at a press conference at the end of its three-day retreat, jointly organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development, the MDGs Office and the National Assembly in collaboration with the European Union in Kaduna.
Reading the communique of the retreat, the Chairman of the House Committee on MDGs, Mrs. Saudatu Sani, said by 2015, Nigeria could possibly only achieve the universal primary education, environmental stability and global partnership.
The communique, which was jointly signed by Sani and the Director of CDD, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, added that the five other goals of the MDGs might remain unattainable due to the peculiar problems confronting the Nigerian nation.
The problems, she said, included massive unemployment due to insufficient investments; poor commitment from government on the attainment of the goals; low National Assembly involvement and participation; and insufficient power supply.
She also identified endemic corruption, inadequate enabling laws and policies from the National Assembly, poor statistical records, non-domestication of the Child Right Acts and failure to pass gender-based bills by the federal legislature as other problems.
The communique noted that attaining the MDGs goals fully and on time was a big challenge for all the stakeholders in the country.
He urged the Federal Government to increase the annual budget and allocate same amount to social services in line with the benchmark set by international agencies, such as the United Nations Children‘s Emergency Fund and the World Health Organisation.
The House Committee however criticised the UN for allegedly excluding African leaders from its newly created steering committee on poverty, illiteracy and disease on the continent.
It described the UN action as a slap on the face of the people on the African continent.
Sani said, “The time for slavery has passed. Now everything must be done rightly. UN cannot inaugurate a committee on Africa without African input; such a committee is already dead on arrival.”
The committee noted that poverty eradication in Nigeria required the transformation of the economy towards the path of sustainable industrialisation anchored on job creation and elimination of social inequalities.
It however said this was impossible within the present context of insufficient public investment in the country.
By Segun Olatunji, Kaduna
The Punch
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
