By Salihu Ridwan Onimasa
ridwanonimasa@gmail.com
The prevalence of poverty in our society today has made it seems to be part of social norms, though it cannot be totally eradicated, but the more it increases, the more negative effects it has on human growth which depicts underdevelopment in all ramifications. This has directly and indirectly revealed the weakness in the supposed empowerment accelerated with humanitarian endeavors as we mustn’t rule out the influence of compassion and generosity for humanity to survive because love and kindness are essential in humans’ life
Limiting the acts of humanity to stomach infrastructure(feeding) is a burden on the substantiality of humanity and detrimental to the essence of social investment as the influence this notion has on empowerment seems to be dehumanizing and will continue to, if not appropriately redefined. Rightly, the local growing NGOs must be commended for their efforts to help with the little within their capacity.
However, examining the elements of capitalism in Nigeria’s economic system has unveiled the extent at which a set of people have privilege over others and this level of inequality leaves a lineage of vulnerability on the majority who struggle to afford a comfortable standard of living.
Who hasn’t dreamt of a world, where the potentialities that slumber in its population are realised and every individual get empowered? The dream is distant but we continue to march inexorably towards it. This is an emphasis on the factual assertion I’ve always opined that many people, most especially youths are full of creative wealthy ideas with unarguable entrepreneurial prowess but of lack of funding capital makes most remain stagnant, reducing value and losing focus.
Leaning on the realistic Humanitarianism of an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans, in order to improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic and logical reasons. It’s pertinent to advocate the paradigm shift from the usual primary understanding of humanitarianism, which is a voluntary emergency aid of domestic philanthropy and upgrade to its secondary development assistance, which attracts ‘tangible empowerment’ that’s truly capable of lifting people out of poverty/suffering and help them gain economic independence over their own lives.
It appears to be dubious when some politicians come with ideas of empowerment programs that ended in motivational speaking and distribution of spoon feeding materials to participants, they choose quantity above quality, counting hundreds of flimsiness without tangibility. I won’t be judgemental as perceptions differ but, have you thought of the far reaching impacts it would have on poverty alleviation when each Federal Representative randomly select thirty(differs base on their hierarchy) responsible individuals yearly, engaging them in lucrative entrepreneurship empirical trainings and financing rather than seminars, to boast of empowering an average of one hundred and twenty individuals from different families to become self sufficient with financial development and stability at the end of a tenure.
Practically, humanitarian demonstrations pertaining to this can even be schemingly structured with strict monitoring to reasonably build a widened strength of growth. Encouraging the fact that the best investment in life is investing in people, government can as well lobby its rich capacitated citizens for joint force in this kind of investment of dual advantages to create wealth and labor, most especially at this time when unemployment is on the rise.
