In September 2000, 189 countries met at the United Nations headquarters under the auspices of the millennium summit and agreed on eight goals called the millennium Development Goals {MDGs}. These goals were agreed on basically to promote global development and to breach the gap between the Less Developed countries {LDC’s} and the advanced capitalist nations of the west. The goals include to “eradicate extreme poverty and Hunger, Achieve Universal Primary Education, Promote Gender Equality and Empower women, Reduce Child Mortality, Improve Maternal Health, Combat HIV AIDS, malaria and other Diseases, Ensure Environmental Sustainability and to Achieve Global Partnership for Development”. These goals have 18 targets and 48 indicators. The UN’s deadline for the attainment of these goals is 2015. African region adopted the new partnership for Africa ’s Development {NEPAD} as the driver of these goals in Africa while Nigeria adopted the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy {NEEDS} as its medium blueprint for development.

NEEDS was first introduced in Nigeria in May, 2004 to be the engine of development. The thrust of this piece will be Nigeria ’s chances of achieving the Goals by 2015. The main goals of NEEDS are Wealth Creation, Poverty Reduction, employment generation and value re-orientation. In its effort to ensure the attainment of these goals, Nigeria developed programmes based on the eight goals as contained in the NEEDS Document. For instance, in goal one, NAPEP was adopted, in goal two, the UBE Act of 2004 came on board, in goal six, the National Agency for the Control of Aids {NACA} and the Roll Back Malaria initiative were introduced and so on.

It is not that the above initiated and adopted programmes are not good, but, where lies the will power to ensure that it is achieved? What is the awareness level of these projects, programmes and policies among the citizens? Has the citizens appreciated the dignity of labour, have they any knowledge of the availability of the agric funds and how it can be assessed? Do they know why the micro-finance houses are being set up? What effort is the government making in discouraging pregnant women from patronizing traditional birth attendants {TBA}, the rural women, what do they know about the Expanded Programme on Immunization {EPI} among others. How effective is the National Orientation Agency {NOA}, ministries of information and communication among other commissioned agencies charged with informing the citizens about government policies and projects, how effective is the SEEDS and LEEDS programmes at the states and local government levels?

In goal seven, our people, what do they know about the effects of the gas flaring in the environment, effects on the ozone layer and the entire ecosystem? Recent report by the UNDP shows that 54.4percent of Nigerian are living below the poverty line, second, that Nigeria will be able to achieve only Goal two, seven and eight by 2015. whereas, some of the global targets reads thus: one, to “Halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day, second is to Halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from Hunger, third is to Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary Education, fourth is to Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and to all levels of education not later than 2015, fifth is to Reduce by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, under-five mortality rate”, among others. How realistic are these in Nigeria .

I agree with Romano Guardini when he said that “The purpose of life may be described as a realization of values, values is what makes a being worthy to exist and an action worth performing” I strongly believe in one of the objectives of NEEDS which is value re-orientation as a yardstick in repositioning Nigeria in its place in the global economy. As a people, our values must be re-examined if progress is in view. Apart from the fact that 54.4 percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, disaggregated indicators on school enrolment, adult literacy rate, food intake, access to safe drinking water, infant and maternal mortality rates and other social indicators paint equally dismal picture, all pointing to the enormity of the task of achieving the MDGs in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria.

Nigeria is fully identified as sitting uncomfortably in the bowels of poverty and so earned the 154^th of 172 countries in the world marginal poverty index. In the words of Herbert J Gans “Poverty does not necessarily exist because there are rich and poor people, it is rather that a few are rich because so many others are poor”. There is the need to reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society if the goals are to be attained in Nigeria. The MDGs are perhaps one of the boldest international commitments ever made by the UN towards enhancing human dignity and preservation, protection and enthronement of human values which comprises economic, social, cultural, political and general development. While it is my desire that Nigeria meets the set target, I am not quite optimistic that the achievement of these goals will be a reality by 2015 based on what is on ground.  

Robot  # 1 | 08.08.2008 22:59

In September 2000, 189 countries met at the United Nations headquarters under t...Read the full article.

philipikita  # 2 | 09.08.2008 23:27

The Nigerian regime, as currently constituted, has zero capacity to achieve these lofty goals. They just "follow-follow" in order to "be heard" also.