Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Monday appealed to the Federal Government to provide them with facilities that could improve their living standard.
They made the appeals in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja ahead of the “International Day for Eradication of Poverty”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Oct. 17 is set aside every year to mark the International Day.
This day was designed by the UN to stimulate individuals, groups and to strengthen the collective fight against hunger and violence and other poverty-related issues.
A civil servant, Mrs Dorathy Williams, identified lack of quality education, shelter, good health, low income and poor housing among the populace as various forms of poverty in the country.
Williams suggested that poverty could be tackled if government could make adequate provision for facilities which were necessities for the living standard of the citizenry.
She, therefore, stressed the need for the federal government to provide special fund for the civil servants in Abuja to ease the economic problems they were facing especially in areas of affordable accomodation.
Another respondent, Mr Boniface Enan, said eradicating poverty in Nigeria would be possible if all programmes related to poverty eradication in the country were properly carried out.
Enan said if programmes such as Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revolution and other poverty alleviation programmes initiated by the successive administrations had been implemented, there would have been a reasonable reduction in poverty.
NAN reports that the theme for this year’s event is: “Working together toward a world without discrimination: Building on the experience and knowledge of people in extreme poverty”. (NAN)
