Poor power supply, a bane to poverty reduction

                

THE country’s poor power supply is affecting government’s poverty reduction programmes. This assertion was made at the 8th annual lecture, of Wilson Badejo Foundation, tagged: Nigeria: Entrenched Poverty and the Growing Under-Privileged Class: What Blue Print for Positive Affirmative Change.

In its lecture, the Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Jerry Gana, argued that for a country to eradicate poverty from its economy, the leadership has to put in place an available and consistent delivery of power supply for business to thrive.

He said, “I would like to emphasise the importance of good leadership in every level and point the logic of basic infrastructure, the primacy of agricultural, food production and rural development, the calculus of power supply and energy. “No nation can transform and develop or conquer poverty without power and energy as a burner.

                         

It is extremely important but that can only be possible when you have a good leadership at all levels of society. Also, speaking on the theme, the guest speaker, Prof. Edward Oyewo of the faculty of law UNILAG, argued that the country need be proactive to policy implementation that would enable growth for the economy.

He said, “When we talk about programme initiative by the government, the idea behind them are sound but the capacity to implement such is always faulty, embodied with corruption and a heavy misappropriation of the resources. the first thing I consider as blue print to reclaiming the country’s glory is the evolution of a realistic and pragmatic vision for dealing with the problems of Nigerians.

However, reform of the anti-corruption agencies, using the bottom top approach, oil and gas, power and electricity as well as need for diversification of the country’s economy to boost infrastructure development. He, however, charged the government on good governance through effective and efficient use of public resources.