112.5 million Nigerians live in poverty –NBS

Posted by admin Headlines Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

February 14, 2012 by Ifeanyi Onuba

Statistician-General of the NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale | credits: File copy

The National Bureau of Statistics on Monday said that 112.519 million Nigerians live in relative poverty conditions.

This is staggering when compared with the country’s estimated 163 million population.

Relative poverty is the comparison of the living standards of people living in a given society within a specified period of time.

It is the most acceptable poverty measurement which has been adopted by the NBS for many years.

Apart from the relative poverty index, other poverty measurement standards are absolute measure, which puts the country’s poverty rate at 99.284 million or 60.9 per cent; the dollar per day measure, which puts the poverty rate at 61.2 per cent; and the subjective poverty measure, which puts the poverty level at 93.9 per cent.

Instructively, all the four methods used in measuring poverty by the NBS pointed to the fact that there was disconnect between the country’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 7.75 per cent and the high poverty rate.

The relative poverty figure of 112.5 million, which was contained in the 2010 poverty profile report of the agency, was released in Abuja on Monday. It represents 69 per cent of the country’s total population.

The 26-page report, which provides details of poverty and income distribution across the country, put the 2004 poverty measurement rate at 54.4 per cent.

The Statistician-General of the NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale, while unveiling the report, noted that the figure might increase to 71.5 per cent when the 2011 figure is computed.

“The NBS estimates that this trend may have increased further in 2011 if the potential impacts of several anti-poverty and employment generation intervention programmes are not taken into account,” he said.

In arriving at the 2010 figure, the NBS boss said data from 20 million households having an average of between four to six family members were collected.

The agency has yet to carry out a survey of the 2011 poverty level as funds for the exercise are still being expected.

According to the report, the North-West and North-East recorded the highest poverty rates in the country in 2010with 77.7 per cent and 76.3 per cent respectively.

On the other hand, the South-West geo-political zone, according to the report, recorded the lowest at 59.1 per cent.

Among the 36 states of the federation, the report stated that Sokoto had the highest poverty rate (86.4 per cent), while Niger had the lowest at (43.6, per cent).

As at 2004, Jigawa State had the highest poverty rate (95 per cent), while Anambra, with a poverty rate of 22 per cent, was the least poverty-stricken state.

Kale said, “In 2004, Nigeria’s relative poverty measurement stood at 54.4 per cent but increased to 69 per cent or 112.518 million Nigerians in 2010.

“Using the absolute poverty measure, 54.7 per cent of Nigerians were living in poverty in 2004 but this increased to 60.9 per cent or 99.284 million Nigerians in 2010.

Continuing, he said, “The NBS adopts the relative poverty measurement for monitoring poverty trends in the country.

“It remains a paradox, however, that despite the fact that the Nigerian economy is growing, the proportion of Nigerians living in poverty is increasing every year.”

Asked why the impact of the country’s high GDP growth rate had not translated into poverty reduction, Kale said, “Economic growth is not development. If you look at our GDP numbers, you will see that agriculture, wholesale and retail trade, and oil and gas constitute over 70 per cent of that growth.

“How many people can those three sectors employ? Not many. Agriculture is largely subsistence in nature because the local farmer is not looking at employing people and it is when agriculture is commercialised that it will be employment generating and poverty reducing.”

He also said that income inequality had risen from 0.429 in 2004 to 0.447 in 2010.

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