A new report has confirmed that not less than 133 million Nigerians are living in poverty. This was contained in the latest Nigeria’s Multidimensional Poverty Index released in Abuja recently by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The new poverty figure represents about 63 per cent of the population. The survey was conducted between November 2021 and February 2022.
The recent flooding across the country, which devastated households and livelihoods and submerged farmlands in many states of the federation, might have increased the poverty index.
The Statistician-General of the Federation and the Chief Executive Officer of NBS, Mr. Semiu Adeniran, who disclosed this in Abuja, said the high rate of poverty number was the outcome of a sample size of 56,610 people it conducted in 109 senatorial districts across the 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In the report, the agency explained that the 133 million dimensionally poor Nigerians are largely due to lack of access to health, education, living standards, employment, housing, security, work and shock, among other challenges. Multidimensional Poverty Index offers a multiple variables form of poverty assessment and identifies indicators responsible for poverty.
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