Stakeholders decry failure of MDGs, chart way for SDGs

Stakeholders have decried the failure by Nigeria and many developing countries to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) dateline, which ended last year.They spoke at an international conference in Lokoja yesterday organized by the School of Management Studies, Kogi State Polytechnic with the theme: Sustainable Development Goals; a new direction for global development.

Professor Etannibi Alemika of the University of Jos said Nigeria and many other countries failed woefully in the achievement of the MDGs except in the area of HIV/AIDs.According to him, “Reports of the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is a successor indicated that many countries, including Nigeria failed to meet many of its cardinal targets.

“Several structural factors and conditions are critical to achieving the goals and targets of complex multi-sectoral programs like the SDGs.”Some of the conditions has to do with coherent and widely shared national values and interests that develop and sustain patriotism and solidarity among citizens.

Alemika pointed out that lack of strong State and Local Governments and partisanship among them as centers of development rather than unbridled treasury looting, nepotism and oppression with impunity among other contributed to the failure in achieving the MDGs.

The achievement of the SDG in Nigeria he pointed out would be constrained also by many prevailing challenges such as bad governance, weak institution, widespread and entrenched corruption and impunity, predatory politicians and rulers as well as contentious politics, crime, conflicts, socio-political and economic exclusion inequalities.

The Rector of the institution, Alhaji Isa Muhammed said that at the end of 2015 which was the target year, poverty in Nigeria had deepened, malaria and other diseases had not abated while environmental degradation persisted.According to him, ” UNICEF report for 2013 showed that about 10.5 million school age Nigerian children were out of school. The figure was higher than the 2015 combined projected population of five African countries of Gabon, Namibia, Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius which is estimated at 10.076 million.’’He said the appalling figure call for concern especially in the post MDGS era.Muhammed wandered what was on ground from the MDG as to warrant SDG saying which achievements are they sustaining.

The senior special assistant to the President on SDGS, Adejoke Orelope Adefulire, in her keynote address said they were learning from some of the fundamental flaws of the MDGS that included late take off.

Other lessons she enumerated are, “the importance of debt-relief induced resources availability, the need for diversification of funding and the importance of an all stakeholders ownership and participation.