133 million Nigerians living in poverty – NBS

The number of Nigerians living in poverty is over 133 million National Statistics Office (NBS) announced on Thursday.

That figure represents 63 percent of the nation’s population.

The NBS reported on the “Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index” released on Thursday.

According to the report, more than half of the poor population cooks with dung, wood or charcoal, rather than cleaner energy.

He said major deficiencies are evident in sanitation, health care, food insecurity and housing.

The report noted that multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72% of people are poor, compared to 42% of people in urban areas.

Approximately 70 percent of Nigeria’s population lives in rural areas, but these areas are home to 80 percent of the poor.

The report, the first poverty index survey published by the statistics office since 2010, said 65% of the poor (86 million people) live in the North, and 35% (nearly 47 million) in the South.

“Poverty levels vary significantly between states, with the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranging from 27 percent in Ondo to 91 percent in Sokoto,” he said.

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The report also stated that the poorest states are Sokoto, Bayelsa, Jigawa, Kebbi, Gombe and Yobe, but we cannot say for sure which of these is the poorest because their confidence intervals overlap.

Overall, the NBS said the incidence of monetary poverty is lower than the incidence of multidimensional poverty in most states.

“In Nigeria, 40.1 percent of people were poor according to the 2018/19 national income poverty line, and 63 percent are multidimensionally poor according to the National MPI 2022,” he said.