Nigeria’s poverty level drops by 2.1 percentage points in 2 years

Poverty rate in Nigeria has dropped from 35.2% of population in 2010/2011 to 33.1% in 2012/2013, according to the World Bank. 

The bank’s acting country manager and lead economist,  Mr John Litwack, stated this during a media launch of the Nigeria Economic Report in Abuja.

Litwack said this represents a dramatic drop from an estimated poverty rate of 62.2 per cent recorded between 2009 and 2010 based on the Harmonised Nigeria Living Standard Statistics (HNLSS).

“The poverty rates per capita from the General Household Survey (GHS) panel between 2012 and 2013 is 33.1% with 44.9% in the rural areas and 12.6% in the urban areas,” he said.

“This indicates lower poverty rates compared to 35.2% recorded between 2010 and 2011 with 46.3% in the rural areas and 15.8% in the urban centre.”

He said that an estimated 60 per cent of the Nigerian population lived below 140 per cent of the poverty line, which is close to two dollars per day.

Explaining the disparities between poverty level in the southern and northern Nigeria, Litwack said there appeared to be higher poverty rate in the northern part than in the southern part of the country.

“The number of poor Nigerians has remained 58 million, more than half of which live in the northeast or northwest of the country.

“While the south and north-central experienced declines in the poverty rate between 2010 to 2011 and 2012 to 2013, the poverty rate increased in the north-east and remained almost unchanged in the north-west,” he said.

He said the country’s employment remained a critical problem in the country.

“The issue we have in Nigeria is not unemployment but underemployment, because most Nigerians cannot afford not to work but a large share of the population is engaged in low productivity and low paying tasks,” Litwack added.

“An unofficial assessment using acceptable International Labour office (ILO) methodologies would suggest that the unemployment rate in Nigeria is less than 10%.”