The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Felix Morka, has said that many of the factors responsible for multidimensional poverty in Nigeria fall under the jurisdiction of state and local governments rather than the Federal Government.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Morka argued that public discourse often places excessive responsibility on President Bola Tinubu for poverty-related challenges, despite the constitutional roles of subnational governments in addressing key social and economic issues.
According to him, factors used in measuring multidimensional poverty, including access to potable water, basic healthcare, sanitation and other livelihood-related services, are largely the responsibility of state and local governments.
Morka noted that since the removal of fuel subsidy in 2023, a significant portion of the resources and savings generated from the policy had been allocated to states and local governments.
He said the country’s tendency to focus almost exclusively on the President and the Federal Government stems from the legacy of an over-centralised system inherited from military rule.
The APC spokesman maintained that subnational governments bear much of the responsibility for improving living conditions and reducing poverty, stressing that they now have greater financial resources to tackle such challenges.
Morka’s words: “A lot of the factors, a lot of the issues that come into that whole system of multidimensional poverty are not really the responsibilities of the federal government.
“Many of those livelihood issues belong within the province of subnationals but in this country we tend to focus almost obsessively on the federal government, on the President, whereas local governments, state governments, are the ones who carry the burden of actually ameliorating some of the conditions that play into all of that data set about multi dimensional poverty.
“We sit here and just say Tinubu is not… whereas if you look at the system, the revenue generation and allocation system, since fuel subsidy was removed in 2023, you find that the bulk of the resources and savings from fuel subsidy have been distributed to sub national now.
“In our analysis we always put the sex light on the president. Maybe that’s where it’s been because of our over centralized system under the military system. We extend that to even a democratic system.
“But otherwise, take the issues of access to basic..,you know, water supply, portable water, basic health care system, sanitation, these are factors in calculating whether or not people have access to good living. Those things are things that are within the province of sub national governments and not the federal government.”
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