The Federal Government of Nigeria has carved the 2020 budget around sustaining growth and job creation. The budget is designed to drive fiscal consolidation, investment in critical infrastructure, human capital development and enabling institutions, incentives for private sector investment, and enhancement of the social investment programmes to further deepen their impact on the most vulnerable Nigerians. According to Daily Trust, the Federal Government plans to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the 2020 budget cycle.
The budget appears to be an offshoot of Nigeria’s reported developmental strides in 2019. On growth, Punch Newspaper reported that Nigeria moved up 15 spots on the ease of doing business ranking in 2019. Similarly, Oxford Business Group reported that in 2019, Nigeria continued to recover from the recession and that its economy is gradually returning to positive growth. The Guardian also documented the claim made by the Federal Government that 12.85 million Nigerians were benefiting from social investment programmes as of 2019.
As lofty as the goals for the 2020 budget are, one is left to imagine the effects on the everyday Nigerian living in rural communities. For instance, one could ask if provision for infrastructure delivery in the budget will provide electricity, or potable water, or even improve the quality of health care delivery in the dilapidated health outpost of Wanikin, Ile-Ife, Southwest Nigeria? One may also like to imagine if the budget will sufficiently provide teachers for the almost collapsing secondary school serving the six communities making up the village or if the budget will at least relieve the highly ambitious king of some of the personal costs he incurs annually in maintaining the secondary school?
What does job creation mean to the residents in the village that is just a few kilometres away from Ile-Ife, Osun State? One can guess that it will mean an expansion of the food processing facility funded by the World Bank through its Community and Social Development program. It should also mean the availability of incentives that could aid agricultural production in the agrarian community. It should include the provision of storage units and more decent transportation networks to avoid spoilage of agricultural produce. It should be the creation of more job openings by investors in the very accommodating community.
Wanikin is just one of the many Nigerian communities that can wrap its development aspirations into the 2020 budget. To 91.8 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty according to Sahara Reporters, effective implementation of a budget targeted at poverty alleviation and job creation is the only hope. In such communities, the desire is to be impacted by the capital allocations of ₦185.34bn, ₦129.08bn, ₦124.40bn, and ₦109.91bn to the Federal Ministries of Education, Power, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Health respectively in the budget.
Should Wanikin anticipate an improvement within this budget cycle? Of course, every community should be positive. However, with the reality that each budget cycle in the last couple of year has always had impressive goals and impressive capital allocations to the sectors that directly bear on the village’s developmental aspirations without any appreciable contribution to the village, one may expect some pessimism. For instance, but for the World Bank funded water project that is nearing completion, any child born in 2015 will only know perennial Oloore and the seasonal Oniyo rivers as the only water sources despite the fact that the capital allocations for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the Ministry for Water Resources have been consistently among the top 10 key capital allocations in the last five years.
While communities like Wanikin are encouraged to be optimistic of development, the government should look beyond economic growth measured by some indicators and concentrate on human capital development across the country. It should create schedules that can activate job creation, support agricultural production and effective food processing, and lead to an overall improvement of the quality of life in rural and urban communities. Beyond the impressive budgetary allocations, efforts should be made to effectively implement the budget with optimum prudence and accountability. With the early passage of the budget, the Federal government has the opportunity to implement the budget from January to December. It should utilize this advantage to deliver a year of sustained growth and job creation.