Push Africa, a pro-poor development non-governmental organisation (NGO), has launched its Adamawa State chapter of the campaign to tackle poverty among Nigerians.
The NGO, which is currently running a nationwide initiative, Do-One-Thing Campaign, said at the Adamawa launch in Yola yesterday that the initiative was aimed at directing the attention of politicians and policymakers to widespread poverty as political activities heighten towards next year’s general election.
The founder of Push Africa, Doris Egberamen said the Do-One-Thing Campaign is designed to advocate the Nigerian government’s efforts to reduce, by half, the number of poor people in the country by 2030.
“It is also directed at supporting similar anti-poverty initiatives by development agencies and private sector institutions,” she said.
She added that in the countdown to next year’s general election, the Do-One-Thing campaign of her organisation would be focusing the attention of politicians aspiring for offices to give priority to “the raging increase” in the number of poor people.
She said her campaign would similarly expect that the politicians would be showing the people that they have actionable plans to tackle the “pervasive and deepening poverty” in their various constituencies.
She said a component of the campaign would be the creation of platforms for Nigerians most hit by poverty to tell the stories of their harsh realities and the country’s elected and appointed leaders encouraged to take steps toward solving the problems.
‘The pro-poor organisation believes the current political season and the expected emergence of a new administration present a good opportunity for all aspiring political leaders to be more intentional about poverty reduction and make it the Number one priority and Push Africa wants to spur them in that direction,” Doris Egberamen said.