A World Bank report has noted that the number of poor persons in Nigeria will rise to 95.1 million in 2022. The number of poor people was 89.0 million in 2020 and would be 95.1 million in 2022. This would mean that 6.1 million more persons would have fallen beneath the poverty line between 2020 and 2022, a 6.7% increase.
With the projected 2022 figures, the number of poor persons in Nigeria has had a four year increase of 14.7% from the 2018/19 figure of 82.1 million to the projected 95.1 million in 2022.
It was stated that the poverty rate had been aided by the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and ‘growing population’ .
This development is coming after the Nigerian government had said that it lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty between 2019 and 2021. The President has also said that the Bank of Industry has created Nine million jobs in the country since 2015, and different schemes to create jobs and tackle poverty in the country have been launched. All of the above has however failed to stem the tide of poverty in the country.
Nigeria continues to battle with issues such as food inflation, rising cost of living among other economic challenges, and these issues are likely some of the reasons why more people are falling into poverty than those lifted out of it.
The World Economic Forum has recommended, among other things, that Nigeria must invest in education, especially girl child education, prioritise health and well-being of its citizenry and enhance economic opportunities while embracing technology to improve economic productivity and opportunities for the countrymen.
The World Bank has also noted that Nigeria may find it hard to tackle poverty if violence continues to occur in the country. While urging tackling violence, the apex bank noted that Nigeria should also prioritise provision of power in the country.
This will help to reduce monetary poverty occasioned by spendings on electricity which is absent and encourage investments and job creation in the country.