After the Federal Government decided to remove fuel subsidy and save the money they spend on the scheme, they tried to convince Nigerians it was for the better.
Also, they said Nigerians would appreciate it in the near future, but many now argue that the poor had walked away with the shorter end of the stick.
Now, a university don, Godwin Kwalbe, wants governments at all levels to shun cosmetic approach in addressing multidimensional poverty affecting a huge population of the country.
Mr Kwalbe, a lecturer in the Department of History, Kaduna State University, gave the advice while speaking with reporters in Abuja on Sunday.
He said that the palliative approach to addressing poverty made it look like the hardship occasioned by spiralling poverty in Nigeria was seasonal.
Also, he said the fuel subsidy removal did not create hardship or poverty but only pushed citizens further down the poverty line.
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The lecturer pointed out that more than half of the country’s population were structurally poor, with many people born into poverty and might continue to live in perpetual poverty.
Structurally Poor
Kwalbe noted that the Federal Government had implemented several palliative programmes in its efforts to address poverty.
He identified some of the programmes as COVID-19 palliatives, economic stimulus packages like market moni, conditional cash transfer, public works programme, school feeding Programme and the current fuel subsidy palliatives.
He, however, said that the programmes, except for the conditional cash transfer programme, were designed only to cushion the effect of poverty and not to address poverty itself.
“In this context, the palliatives are merely serving as pain killers and as such, they are not addressing the causes of the pains,” he said.
He advised the federal, states and local governments to go back to the drawing board and come up with a well-structured social welfare and social protection programmes.
