'Nigeria's challenge is not poverty, but redistribution of wealth' - President Jonathan

Responding to the World Bank report, which placed Nigeria amongst the five poorest countries in the world, President Goodluck Jonathan explained that Nigeria's challenge is not poverty, but redistribution of wealth.
According to The Nation, the country's leader made the statement at the May Day rally held yesterday in Abuja. Rebutting the claim about poverty, he said that Nigerians are "the most travelled people", that Nigeria's GDP was growing approximately by 7 % and that "if you talk about ownership of private jets, Nigeria will be among the first 10 countries".

"Some of you will experience that there is an amount of money you will give to a Nigerian who needs help and will not even regard it and thank you but if you travel to other countries and give such an amount, the person will celebrate."

Speaking about the issue of money distribution, which President considers the real core of the problem, Jonathan said his administration is working on providing more Nigerians with access to financial resources. According to the country head, they are also actively developing agricultural programmes to make this field a good source of wealth creation.

Jonathan faulted the international rating saying:

"They looked at Nigeria and we gave explanations and they could not see any convincing reason but to downgrade our economy, they left us as BB minus. They said elections are coming, politicians are shouting at themselves, it may affect their economy, we will no longer give you stable outlook but give you negative outlook, which is same BB minus. When so many countries have been downgraded, they said Nigeria is one of the five poorest countries."

In conclusion Jonathan stated that Nigerians and the authorities were capable of collectively overcoming the current challenges and moving Nigeria "to where we want to go".



The Nation