A new acronym to fight poverty 

By Levi Obijiofor 

Friday, 22 February 2008 

We are in love with acronyms. Consider this. Between 1979 and today, no fewer than 50 acronyms (some of them jaw-breaking and others simply incomprehensible) have been rolled out by federal authorities led by a mix of military dictators and elected presidents such as Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Olusegun Obasanjo and now Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.  

Last week, the Federal Government added a new baby to the family of acronyms it wishes to use to propagate official programmes. The government announced it had found a project with a fanciful codeword to eliminate poverty in Nigeria. That project was called Community Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (CEEDS).  

In its purest form, CEEDS is simply an old idea dressed up in a new name. On paper, CEEDS is expected to strip off poverty from the homes of 30 million Nigerians by the year 2011. It is expected to consume N248.64 billion in four years. It is a bold initiative, big in imagination but light in implementation mechanisms. If you believe the propaganda, you will believe anything. We don’t even know how many people who live in Nigeria can be classified as poor, by government’s definition of poverty. 

CEEDS is targeted at achieving core objectives that revolve around seven areas: “poverty reduction, social mobilisation and partnership for development, community capacity enhancement, micro-finance, public works, ecological restoration and improvement, and productivity enhancement that is research-driven”. Senator Sanusi Daggash, minister and deputy chairperson in the National Planning Commission, who released official information on the project last week, was upbeat about the prospects for the success of CEEDS in Nigeria. He said: “The NSF (National Solidarity Fund) has seen poverty reduced by more than 50 percent in less than three years in countries like Tunisia and some provinces of China. I believe that with the establishment of NSF, in the next four years, the nation would witness the transformation of about 8, 288 communities in the 36 states and FCT… This translates to about 224 communities per state in the next four years, at a rate of 52 communities per annum.”  

Based on the minister’s optimistic comments, I argue that this is not only an ambitious project but also a mock imitation of what the Tunisians and Chinese successfully implemented. The notion that a project succeeded in another country is no evidence that it would be implanted successfully in Nigeria. Here is an example. Over the past 40 years, Nigeria borrowed some pragmatic project ideas from Southeast Asian countries (examples include Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand) but rather than turn them into success stories in our environment, we made (and continue to make) a mess of what other countries used productively to reduce poverty in their societies.  

In trying to present CEEDS as a fresh idea that differs significantly from previous failed poverty reduction programmes, Daggash produced some good arguments, some of which he used, unfortunately, to shoot down his own case. His words:  “CEEDS is unique in four main respects. First, it is Nigeria’s first attempt at grassroots planning.” Many people would contest this claim but let’s not interrupt the minister. He continued: “Nigeria has had many poverty interventions and rural development programmes by successive governments. These interventions had been primarily ad hoc and crash in nature. The outcome in most of the cases had been disappointing and in some cases, dismal… The reasons for the failure are many: They range from corruption, lack of continuity, inadequate resources and lack of political commitment to lack of ownership and buy-in-beneficiaries.” 

When Daggash listed the factors that crushed previous poverty alleviation programmes in Nigeria, he did not say how CEEDS would be different from the failed projects or how CEEDS would avoid the fate of its predecessors. If the previous projects were strangulated by official corruption, inadequate resources and lack of political commitment, so would CEEDS be denied the oxygen of financial and political commitment to succeed.  

Corruption is still endemic at all levels of government in Nigeria, including at the private sector. There is no guarantee that CEEDS would not be starved of resources when they are needed. There is also no assurance that political differences would not imperil the operation of CEEDS or the achievement of its omnibus objectives.  

On the plane of ideas, CEEDS reads like a smart document put together by smart minds. But on the platform of political and economic reality, CEEDS is a grandiose illusion designed to impress and win the hearts of the poor. How it would work and whether it would work are questions that may not be answered at the moment. The counterpoint to this argument is that it is better to experiment with good ideas than to be overwhelmed by lethargy. We must be weary because there are historical antecedents. 

During the eight years that Olusegun Obasanjo reigned as president, his government wrestled with many ideas to fight poverty. The government announced with fanfare that it would start an anti-poverty program known as poverty alleviation programme. That was after it dawned on Obasanjo and his ministers that the previous crusade that aimed to eliminate poverty was impossible to achieve. Someone had whispered to Obasanjo and his ministers: if you cannot eliminate poverty, you can at least endeavour to ease the burden. It was a winning entry and Obasanjo did not waste time in embracing the concept. He beckoned his ministers and urged them to sell the new idea. They went to town but no one believed them.  

Throughout Obasanjo’s tenure, poverty was never reduced. In fact, Nigeria gained more notoriety in international organisations where official economic data showed the country was actually regressing rather than progressing. Can’t we tackle problems in the country without giving them fanciful or dreadful names? Does the proliferation of acronyms in the lexicon of government business suggest that official campaigns or projects can’t succeed unless they have been baptised in a new robe? There are simply too many acronyms.  

During the time of their dictatorship, Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon were so upset with the level of indiscipline in the society that they devised a campaign to flog everyone into line. That campaign was called “War Against Indiscipline” (WAI). In the first few days of WAI, the campaign hit the right note with the public but there were problems. People were forced to do things they were not used to. Above all, people were compelled to observe codes of behaviour which they perceived as alien; they could not see any commensurate value in behaving the way the military authorities fashioned public behaviour for everyone.  

A number of people were humiliated publicly for jaywalking in inappropriate places, for refusing to use pedestrian bridges where they were located, for defecating or urinating in public spaces, for jumping queues at airports or bus terminals, and indeed for doing all manner of things associated with indiscipline. It was in the days when muscular and physically strong men and women got what they wanted based on their raw energy. The sick and the frail were not recognised. It was as if they did not exist. For a short time, people adopted the official code of behaviour as defined by soldiers on the streets. And that was really the reason for the death of WAI.  

Public campaigns that are driven with force or implemented with military coercion will last only as long as the source of that force exists. The moment the public heard that Buhari’s government had been overthrown by Ibrahim Babangida and his band of foot soldiers, everyone rushed to peel off WAI stickers from their front doors and all public buildings. The argument was that we didn’t need stickers to behave properly or to return to our jungle ways. No sooner did WAI die than Babangida’s government inundated the nation with his government’s brand new acronyms. Remember MAMSER, DFFRI, and all those highfalutin contraptions. 

One of the reasons why government projects hardly succeed in Nigeria is that some senior government officials are excellent in marshalling out ideas but poor in project implementation, project monitoring and project evaluation. The levels of bureaucracy set up for implementing CEEDS are not only nightmarish but they also constitute a recipe for failure.