the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently released the highly anticipated report on multidimensional poverty. The report put Nigeria’s poverty index at 0.257, with around 133 million people multidimensionally poor.
Sokoto, Bayelsa and Jigawa states topped the list of Nigerian states with the highest multidimensional poverty index, with a total of 14.18 million impoverished people.
Factors such as health care, food insecurity, education, nutrition, and access to cooking fuel were the largest contributors to the national poverty rate. According to the NBS, more than half of the Nigerian population is multidimensionally poor and lacks fuel for cooking.
The interesting aspects: 65% of the poor in Nigeria, which translates to 86 million, live in the northern part of the country, while 35% (47 million) live in the southern part.
- The number of poor living in rural areas is estimated at 105.98 million, with a multidimensional poverty index of 0.302, while 26.94 million people are poor in urban areas, giving a MPI of 0.155.
- Further disaggregation of the data showed that the northwest area has the highest number of poor people with an impoverished population of 45.49 million, with a MPI of 0.324. On the other hand, the Southeast region registered the lowest number of poor with an estimate of 10.85 million and an MPI of 0.183.
- Meanwhile, the South-West region registered the lowest MPI rate with 0.151, followed by the Southeast and South-South with 0.183 and 0.25 respectively.
- In addition, nutritional deprivation was the largest contributor to the MPI in the Northwest region and food insecurity was the largest contributor in the South. Unemployment contributed more in the South-South region, while security shocks affected the MPI in South-South, North Central and Northeast.
Poorest Nigerian States: Sokoto State led the list of states with the highest multidimensional poverty index with 0.409 and 5.81 million poor. The state was closely followed by the state of Bayelsa with an index of 0.401 and 2.61 million poor.
- Third on the list is Jigawa State with a MPI of 0.385 and 5.76 million people. Others on the list with the worst poverty rate are Kebbi (0.385), Gombe (0.38), Yobe (0.37) and Plateau (0.365).
- On the other hand, Ondo State recorded the lowest MPI at 0.095 with only 1.3 million multidimensionally poor people. It was followed by the states of Lagos and Abia with 0.101, respectively. Meanwhile, they differ in the number of poor people. Specifically, Abia has 0.12 million poor, while Lagos State has 4.22 million people.
World Bank prediction: The number of poor people according to the World Bank estimate for 2020 was 89 million, which represents 42% of the population, which increased from 40.1% in 2018/2019 as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
- However, the World Bank projects that the number of poor people in the country based on living standards could reach 95.1 million by the end of 2022, due to the rising cost of living beset by a high 17-year inflation rate. , layoffs and the general economic downturn.
- Nigeria has been grappling with the high cost of living, which has further widened the gap between rich and poor, causing many more Nigerians to fall below the poverty line.
- The CBN raised the policy rate three times this year in an attempt to curb the rising rate of inflation, yet prices have still remained high.
While the World Bank projection seeks to estimate the number of people as a function of living standards, the recent NBS report measures the proportion of potential deprivation experienced by poor people, which ranges from 0 to 1.