YOBE: 2.1M TO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE IN 2011

A consultant with the European Union (EU), Hyacinth Ishoku has predicted that 2.1 million of the 3.4 million people who made up the total population of Yobe State would be living absolutely below the poverty line by 2011. He made the prediction in a paper: ' Yobe State , the development challenges' which he presented at a workshop organized by the EU State Reform Institutional Programme (SRIP) in Damaturu recently.

Ishoku said poverty level in the state, according statistics, has in the last 2 years risen from 45 per cent to 78 per cent and that by 2011 the situation would be worsened. Ishokn said that of the 17 local government areas of the state, poverty level who escalating in Bade, Bursari, Damaturu, Nangere and Nguru. He pointed out that the World Bank studies and researches have shown that there had been poor healthcare system while water supply, education as well as structural rural and urban lack in the state.

Malnutrition as noted by the consultant has been responsible on yearly basis for the death of more than 105 of the 1,000 babies being delivered. On education, Ishoku revealed that 84 per cent of the women in the state were uneducated, stressing that by the MDGs, all the boys and girls were expected to have completed their primary education by 2011.

Ishoku further disclosed that the 2007 studies of the World Bank indicated that maternal ratio in the northeastern part of the country stood at 1,500/100,000 as against the national ratio of 800/100,000 in 2003.

In his remarks, a financial analyst, Femi Adeniyi observed that the lack of basic revenue generation facilities for financing of development projects and programmes hampered progress in poverty alleviation programme.

He then called for the review of biometric projects in such a way that would encourage implementation of appropriate accounting and financing system for the development of all sectors.