Sewing Machines, Laptops And The War On Poverty

A sewing machine does not look like much. In Oje market in Ibadan or Wuse market in Abuja, you can pick up a decent one for less than what some of our big men spend on aso-ebi for a single owambe. But put that machine in the hands of a young man who knows how to use it, and you have a business. You have an income. You have a family that eats three times a day.
That, in a nutshell, is the thinking behind the presidency’s National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS). And I must confess that it is one of the few government programmes in recent times that has made me sit up and pay attention.
As I have said previously on this page, Nigeria has never suffered from a shortage of ...