Poverty: Probe 'social intervention programmes', SERAP tells Buhari

Punch

SERAP said, “The report that 133 million Nigerians are poor suggests corruption and mismanagement in the spending of trillion of naira on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes, including the reported disbursement of over $700 million from the repatriated Abacha looted funds to these programmes.”

SERAP also said, “Your government has legal obligations to effectively and progressively address and combat extreme poverty as a matter of human rights.”

SERAP said, “The failure to address extreme poverty has resulted in high levels of inequality, and serious violations of economic and social rights of Nigerians, particularly the socially and economically vulnerable sector of the population.”

The letter, copied to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier DE SCHUTTER, read in part, “These grim revelations by the NBS show the failure to fulfil your oft-repeated promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, and that no one will be left behind.

“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within seven days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to comply with our request in the public interest.